“I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your president with your prayers."
— On becoming president, August 1974.


Ford pic

From the Washington Post: "Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr., 93, who became the 38th president of the United States as a result of some of the most extraordinary events in U.S. history and sought to restore the nation's confidence in the basic institutions of government, has died..." (read the full obit from the Post here).

From the New York Times: "Former President Gerald R. Ford, who was thrust into the presidency in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal but who lost his own bid for election after pardoning President Richard M. Nixon, has died....

"He was 93, making him the longest living former president, surpassing Ronald Reagan, who died in 2004, by just over a month" (the full obit from the NYT here).

The Okie Gardener offered this insightful remembrance of Ford last month, when he eclipsed Ronald Reagan as the longest living former president. The Gardener also included this excellent tribute from Gleaves Whitney courtesy of National Review Online.

My Recollection:

Gerald Ford was the first president to whom I actually paid attention. I was nine years-old when he assumed the position. The media were merciless in their derision of the unelected president who pardoned Richard Nixon. I remember well the Chevy Chase bit on SNL in which the "president" oafishly stumbled around the oval office, speaking nonsense, wearing his football helmet and trying to receive snaps from his stuffed dog, Liberty. I don't think I realized at the time that Ford was the most decorated athlete of the presidents (1934 MVP of the Michigan football Wolverines); he was also a ten battle-star Navy veteran of WWII, and he graduated from Yale Law School with a B average (back when that was an impressive accomplishment).

After falling in love politically with Ronald Reagan during his campaign for the GOP nomination in 1976, I realized that I would be a Republican come hell or high water when Gerald Ford ascended the stage triumphant in Kansas City. Watching from my home in Southern California, on a tiny early-model color TV (at one point my cousin observed: "look the President is green"), I came to understand unequivocally that these were my people.

The Ford presidency was brief but mature. He was honest. He was forgiving. His later rapprochement with Jimmy Carter, who defeated him in 1976, was an example of his character. Like Adams and Jefferson or Bush-41 and Clinton-42, I give the credit for this famous reconciliation to the loser (it is much easier to be gracious in victory); it is the vanquished who must overcome the sense that they were defeated through unprincipled ambition and injurious machinations on the part of their opponent. Ford emerged eventually from 1976 with no public bitterness.

As Henry Kissinger observed: "Providence smiled on Americans when, seemingly by happenstance, it brought forward a president who embodied our nation's deepest and simplest values."

Jerry Ford was unabashedly the quintessential American.

I invite you to post your own thoughts and tributes.