Ford--the view from waikikamukau

hopefully somewhere in blog world, someone will be writing about the Ford remembered by those of us who lived through his years of prominence. in those days his smile was associated (okay, by democrats) with excessive blows to the head from playing football at Michigan. we all said he could not walk and chew gum at the same time. Ford was not outshone as a language mangler on the public stage until the arrival of Dan Quayle. he was a successful congressman from the car state of Michigan in the years that Detroit was riding herd with a blind eye to the fact that the Germans and Japanese were forging industries that would make US autos into also-rans. his signal act that will be bandied about in the obits--the pardoning of Nixon--is still light years away from being digested by pundits. i did read a review fairly recently of a book detailing the cabals/coteries of advisers swirling around the White House in the days immediately before and after Nixon's exit. the group that espoused the pardon included young partisans by the names of Rumsfeld and Cheney--surprise. things have been twisted ever since--i predict this will include the three days of the current news cycle with much Ford talk. if Blair's plane had gone a few more meters, Ford's death would have been on the lower half of the front pages of today's papers. (if one were searching for something really mean to say about Ford, it could be pointed out that as with Regan, it is difficult to know when senility set in since there was never a point at which acute thought could be seen to weaken.) my memories of Ford are conflated with the impersonations of Chevy Chase who utterly channeled Gerry...tripping towards the lectern for a press-briefing, dropping papers once there, slipping on the stairs of the presidential jet. Ford's most endearing pratfall was bouncing a golf ball off the earnest forehead belonging to a member of the press corps. this was the moment that confirmed hope for all--yes, any child can grow up to be president. a president is just one of us. it was the common touch in Ford that aroused our affections--the feeling that after all is said in done, he was a decent man and his heart was in the right place...where are his kind when we so desperately need them?