Former President Gerald Ford Dead at 93

Rancid Altoid was one of a large number of readers to tell us that "Former U.S. President Gerald Ford, who was swept into office after the Watergate scandal and later pardoned Richard Nixon, died at age 93, his widow said on Tuesday."

Comments

The King is Dead, Long Live the King

[thermopile]

Interestingly, President Ford is the only person to have served as both Vice President and President, and been elected to neither position.

Obligatory wiki quote.

Minor typo

[SNR monkey]

Not to be a grammar nazi, but it should read "from the too-many-submissions-to-ignore dept"

Re:Cnn does it best

[afidel]

I heard on NPR this morning that there were two assassination attempts against Ford. One of them was a result of a local paper publishing his complete travel itinerary when he was in town, when this was discussed with Ford not long ago he remarked that he was not aware that the paper had published that information! It's interesting that the attempt against Regan that injured Brady gets so much notoriety but the two attempts against Ford are never talked about.

Nope, the played-too-hard President

[ScentCone]

I think most people these days only know of Ford through accident-prone appearances on shows like the Simpsons and impersonations by Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live reruns.

It's worth mentioning that Ford was actually very athletic (more so than probably every other president, though Dubya liked to jog and now bikes when he can, and of course Teddy Roosevelt was Action Guy). Ford played very hard in his younger years and it really took a toll on his knees, which is why he had trouble on stairs later on (it may seem quaint to kids today, but they really didn't have the cool knee-joint replacement tech back then).

Re:Cnn does it best

[eln]

The wiki article on Gerald Ford currently has several areas where a word in the article has been replaced with the word "wank," or where that word has been inserted. Fairly subtle, but easy to catch if you actually read the article start to finish.

Re:Cnn does it best

[Mr. Slippery]

It's interesting that the attempt against Regan that injured Brady gets so much notoriety but the two attempts against Ford are never talked about.

I know /. skews young, so it's possible you may not remember Reagan getting shot.

That's the thing: unlike Ford, he actually got shot, as did Brady and a Secret Service guy, Tim McCarthy. Missed killing Reagan by about an inch. We had to wait in suspense to see if he would survive or not. So, yeah, that stands out in people's memories. (I was 11 when it happened.)

Squeaky Fromme - a Manson Cult member one attempt

[spineboy]

She was responsible for one of the assassination attempts on Pres Ford. A secret service agent saw her acting oddly, went over to check her out and was close enough to prevent the shooting by STICKING HIS FINGER between the guns hammer and bullet, thus preventing the bullet from firing.
Sara Moore, a five time divorcee, and Patty Hearst fanatic, was responsible for the other attempt, just 17 days after the first one. Her aim was deflected by Oliver Sipple, a gay ex-marine, who never received a thank-you from the president, until Harvey Milk protested that. Mr. Sipple eventually committed suicide.

Re:Squeaky Fromme - a Manson Cult member one attem

[pointbeing]

Wikipedia says Ford thanked Sipple. Interesting article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Sipple

Re:Messiness in front, though

[calidoscope]

Maybe GWB and/or Bill Clinton are saints, sent from God himself; maybe they're full-on sociopaths. However, the most likely scenario is that they're the usual mixture of good and evil, altruism and selfishness, who through various turns-of-events became President despite their flaws.
Very well put, that's the most insightful statement I've ever seen in the politics section of Slashdot. To think that presidents may be allowed to be human...

What's really sad to see is how little people know of abuses of presidential power by presidents before Nixon, specifically Woodrow Wilson.

Re:Cnn does it best

[WillyPete]

He was also aware in advance of the plan by Indonesia to massacre the East Timorese with U.S.-provided weaponry (~200,00 killed). Now, I'm not certain that we really needed to act militarily, but if the Indosesians wanted to kill a third East Timor's population I fail to see why we got to provide the weapons.

http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_co ntent&task=view&id=975&Itemid=135
http://redstateson.blogspot.com/2006/12/gaw-in-act ion.html