Gerald Ford finally stumbles into his grave
A lot has been said over the past couple of days about the life of Gerald R. Ford, who became Vice President when former V.P. Spiro Agnew was forced to resign due to a tax evasion conviction. He was never elected. He ascended to the office of the President in August 1974 when his boss was forced to resign in shame. Once again, he was not elected. Nevertheless, most of the coverage that I have seen today has lauded him as an outstanding and beloved statesman who took the helm of a troubled nation at a time of unprecedented crisis and worked tirelessly to heal the wounds brought about by Watergate. The problem with all of this are that the facts of his political life simply do not align with these claims. Just about all of the glowing quotes that I have heard over the past two days have come from Republicans, who are once again embroiled in political disaster and, again, are calling on their hero to save their image. The fact that he is a dead president just makes it all the sweeter for them.

So just what did Gerald Ford accomplish that makes him such a hero? By August of 1974, the nation literally hungered for a resolution to the Watergate scandal. Most Americans wanted Nixon to be brought to justice like so many of his underlings. They wanted to see him testify at the Watergate hearings that had occupied so much TV time throughout the summer. They wanted to know what he knew and when he knew it about the burglary of a psychiatrist's office, the bugging of the offices of the Democratic National Committee, and what was said on that missing 18 1/2 minutes of telephone transcript tape. Former White House Counsel, John Dean, testified that he had discussed the cover up of the Watergate incident with Nixon on numerous occasions. The noose was tightening, but before any legal action could take place, Mr. Ford pulled a surprise move and granted Nixon a full and unconditional pardon.

This seemed at the time to be the sole purpose of his presidential career. With the stroke of a pen, Ford single handedly had ended over two years of intensive investigation that had captivated the nation. There would be no resolution to the Watergate Scandal. 'Tricky Dicky,' as he was by then known, had gotten away with everything. For this act, Ford was roundly hated by the people of this nation and the media, and he was lampooned mercilessly. It was all over for the Republicans. Most people thought they would never win another election. But because of Ford's pardon, quite the opposite occurred. With the pardon, he set a precedent for all presidents in the future, signaling to them that no matter what unlawful act they committed while in office, there would be no cause to fear punishment. This attitude was spelled out in a 1977 Nixon interview with Dick Cavett in which Nixon stated, "When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal." It was reflected in the Reagan administration in the form of the Iran-Contra scandal, in the Clinton administration with the Monica Lewinsky scandal and in the current Bush administration with illegal acts too numerous to mention. This is the Ford legacy, and what a shameful spectacle it has become.

But there is more to the tale of Mr. Ford than this. Many people probably do not realize that Ford was also a member of the infamous Warren Commission, the body established by President Lyndon Johnson to investigate the assassination of his former boss, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Ford was one of the authors of the report which, against all reason, asserts that a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, killed Kennedy with two shots fired from a book depository building adjacent to Dealey Plaza in Dallas. There is so much evidence to the contrary that few who have researched the crime agree with the findings, with most saying it would be impossible for Oswald to have pulled off the job alone. Worse, it was reported in 1997 that Ford himself had altered the text of the report to change where the bullet had entered Mr. Kennnedy's body. So the Watergate Scandal was actually the second cover up that Ford was involved with, not his first as most thought at the time.

So before you shed a single tear for Ford, remember his past. Is he really, as current President Bush put it, "a great man who devoted the best years of his life in serving the United States," or is he merely just another scumbag that has brought shame to the Oval Office?

The way I see it, James Brown was the biggest loss of the week. Ford is just another study in the brevity of the collective memories of this country. He was no great man. He was a cover up artist. Now he is dead. Let's just bury him and have it over with.