Slashdot Mirror
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."
CNN Special coverage
He was pretty interesting! I didn't realize he was a Michigan football player who turned down the NFL to go into Yale law!
Not sure I agree with the Nixon pardoning but it did get the messiness behind us. However, it allows presidents to seem to operate with out regard to legality (ie, current war crimes, etc...)
A lot of people, especially younger ones, weren't aware that Ford was the only US president who was never elected to office. When Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned over charges of tax evasion, Nixon chose Senator Ford to replace him. Then when Nixon resigned over Watergate, Ford took the top job. 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. Some people believe that his unremarkable term of office was just what this country needed after the previous administraitons focus on Viet Nam, Watergate, etc.
President. No Wiki quote, look it up yourself. But he joined 6 of the 12 men who walked on the moon with that distinction. (Why do you think Apollo 11's lunar module was called "The Eagle"?)
It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly.
Well it did succeed and over 200,000 East Timorese died during the invasion and subsequent occupation. It's strange that neither Ford nor Kissinger mentioned they gave the green light for the East Timor invasion in their memoirs. It must have slipped their minds. Fortunately details of their meetings with Suharto are now available (released by the National Security Archive in 2001). Yes Ford will be sorely missed by the people of East Timor.
When I was 17, I received an Eagle Scout award. Our local Scout council was holding a benefit dinner, and President Ford (by that time, former president) was the guest of honor, who was a former Scout himself. I was asked if I wanted to be in the color guard, and I readily accepted. I also had the honor of sitting next to him at the head table for dinner. He was a very gracious man, and was happy to talk with us about him and Scouting. Being young, I was quite nervous, but he interacted with us in a comfortable, casual, yet respected manner.
One thing that I'll never forget is that for dessert, we were served a "grasshopper pie", which was a mint ice cream and chocolate pie. Interestingly, they served him a bowl of three simple scoops of vanilla ice cream. When I asked him about it, he said that he loved vanilla ice cream, and didn't like the other fancy stuff.
Anyway, it was a pleasure to have had the honor of spending a short time with him.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
I think Ford may be the only President whose wife left a longer-lasting legacy and larger impact on our consciousness than he did. I mean, he was pretty bland other than dealing with things he didn't start...but the Betty Ford clinic is practically part of our national vocabulary.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
I agree 100%. It's not a coincidence that some of the worst bad actors of the current junta were staffers in the Nixon white house. Nor is it a coincidence that a lot of them were involved in Iran/Contra on the way to their current misdeeds.
Rule of law has to be for everybody, not just those without the power to adjust the judicial process to their taste.
What part of "A well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Ford was also the last surviving member of the Warren Commission.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
In fact, ultimately his most important decision was to sign the Helsinki accords against the opinion of his party and frankly many in the US at that time. People thought it was a copout to codify the post WWII boundaries but he recognized that the human rights provisions would be a timebomb ticking inside of the USSR. It was not long after that dissent began to appear in the combloc, specifically Poland. These were the first cracks in the soviet empire.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kEh3Kgwhk0
http://www.jfkfiles.com/jfk/html/faq.htm
Don't let silly facts get in the way of good 'ol paranoia.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-cri43ttTo&NR Also this. Notice JFK and Connally react at the exact same instant, right after passing the sign because they were hit by the same bullet. Also shows the 3d model's positioning to be correct.
Oswald owned the gun used to kill JFK, and there are pictures of him holding it. Marina Oswald testified in 1964 and 1978 that she took the photographs at Oswald's request.
http://independence.net/jfk/oswaldxh300.jpg
He had used the same rifle earlier in attempt to assassinate General Walker.
He attempted the assassination on April 10, 1963. Though he did not leave specifics of his plans in writing, Oswald did leave a note in Russian for Marina with instructions for her to follow -- should he be jailed in Dallas, or otherwise disappear. neutron activation tests later proved that the Walker bullet was from the same cartridge manufacturer that the two bullets which later struck Kennedy were from.
He was seen carrying what he told co-workers were 'shower rods' into the building. He was the only employee missing from the building after the assassination. He shot and killed a police officer while attempting escape, this same gun was found on him when he was arrested.
I mean, what proof do you want?
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
Not really. There's very little about Nixon that fits either the neocon mold or the mold of their various heroes. Nixon was a liberal Christian--a Quaker--rather than an observant Jew or Christian like the neoconservatives. He adopted a policy of decline (along with Kissinger) rather than one of a powerful, resurgent America like Reagan or Bush. In fact, the neoconservatives are explicitly against the kind of Nixon/Kissinger realism, eschewing it for a "muscular idealism." (That Kissinger has being advising the current White House says less about any neocon affinity for realism than it does Kissinger's characteristic position as an indiscriminate courtier to power.) In domestic policy Nixon was also quite liberal, doing little if anything to undo LBJ's Great Society policies, and pursuing conservationism quite actively. The division within the Republican party between the Nixon/Ford wing and the Reagan wing, and the neocons taking the Reagan wing side, has been a defining characteristic of the rise of the neocons.
The Rise and Fall of Online Community