In post 9/11 era, Gerald Ford was the voice of reason?
I must admit, before Bob Woodward’s interview with former President Gerald Ford was released, I had voiced that Ford’s presidency was defined by his pardoning of Richard Nixon, and the fact that he was never elected.
As it turns out, while that statement may or may not have been true, Ford’s, much like his successor Jimmy Carter’s, best contributions may have come after his presidency.
In looking back at Ford and his policies, it is likely that we would have agreed on several fiscal matters. Ford, a self described “…moderate in domestic affairs, a conservative in fiscal affairs, and a dyed-in-the-wool internationalist in foreign affairs.” would likely have been pretty up my alley as far as presidents go. I probably would have liked to see him a bit more progressive on the domestic front, but all in all in looking back, he doesn’t seem too terrible to me.
When reading the piece in the Washington Post this morning, I began to wonder, why it was that a group of people that had formerly held office together (Cheney was Ford’s chief of staff, and Rumsfeld his pentagon chief) as collegues in the same administration had come to hold nearly diametrically opposite views regarding Iraq. Further, I began to wonder, how a never elected president, who is best known to my generation for letting Nixon off the hook and for his wife’s clinics, had suddenly, in death, put forth so clearly what former members of his administration, and our current president and his cabinet so utterly fail to grasp.
Why is the current administration so caught up in “terrorist fever” as Ford so succinctly put it? Why can’t they come to realize that defense of the “homeland” starts at home, not abroad? Or, perhaps a bit more sobering, that here in the States, your odds are significantly better of being struck by lightening and winning the lottery on the same day than being the victim of a terrorist attack.
Now they (the current administration) cling to the tepid hope that there is a “victory” to be gained here. That with the right “spin” we (the U.S.) hasn’t “lost” hasn’t been “defeated.”
The truth is that with the attitude in which we invaded, we had already lost. We’ve lost the goodwill and genuine appreciation the rest of the world has held for us by acting like reckless cowboys looking for showdown wherever we could find (read: imagine) one.
It is startling to me that in the post 9/11 era a former republican president put it best…
“…I don’t think, if I had been president, on the basis of the facts as I saw them publicly, I don’t think I would have ordered the Iraq war. I would have maximized our effort through sanctions, through restrictions, whatever, to find another answer.”
Finding another answer…I wonder if attempting find another answer was even tabled in the run up to Iraq. Something tells me given the short amount of time between 9/11 and the launch of operations in Iraq that the answer is no.
When “W” is done eulogizing Ford, maybe he should look back, and maybe ask WWGD….
What would Gerald do?
