Gerald Ford - remembering Jerry

[snapcat]

Truer words have never been spoken. Bush certainly thought more about racing back to DC to sign some Terry Schiavo bill than he does about paying respect to the fallen Ford, if you will. Imagine that!

Alfie makes a good point. He did rush back to DC for the Terry Schiavo deal.

 

[Kulindahr]

True.

Maybe the Fords have good taste, and told him not to show?

 

[naked gent]

It occured to me while hearing all the talk about Ford pardoning Nixon that Ford did what he thought was right for the country even though he knew it would hurt him politically.

In 1990 facing deficits as far as the eye could see George H.W. Bush agreed to a tax increase which violated his key campagin promise and which he knew would hurt him politically. Without that tax increase its quite likely that the balanced budgets which Clinton produced never would have happened.

In the mid 60's LBJ pushed through civil rights and voting rights laws which he knew would cost him and his party politically.

I think in each case each man did the right thing and all were never elected to office again. We americans are ever wondering why we are burdened with such poor political leaders who are more likely to consult a poll than their conscience when making decisions yet what else should we expect from them considering what they expect from us?

 

[Centexfarmer]

True.

Maybe the Fords have good taste, and told him not to show?

Now there's an idea! I didn't consider that!

As I've stated before in this thread, regardless of one's party (or partisan) affiliation, Gerald Ford deserves, and has earned the respect of all Americans for the long service that he gave for his country.

I'd be hard pressed to ever say the same thing about our current President, and his divisive politics, and partisonship.

So there may be some truth. Perhaps Bush was asked to stay home.

 

[Kulindahr]

It occured to me while hearing all the talk about Ford pardoning Nixon that Ford did what he thought was right for the country even though he knew it would hurt him politically.

In 1990 facing deficits as far as the eye could see George H.W. Bush agreed to a tax increase which violated his key campagin promise and which he knew would hurt him politically. Without that tax increase its quite likely that the balanced budgets which Clinton produced never would have happened.

In the mid 60's LBJ pushed through civil rights and voting rights laws which he knew would cost him and his party politically.

I think in each case each man did the right thing and all were never elected to office again. We americans are ever wondering why we are burdened with such poor political leaders who are more likely to consult a poll than their conscience when making decisions yet what else should we expect from them considering what they expect from us?

Very nice insight!

Where did we get the habit of voting out people with moral courage?

It's a standard weakness of democracies; America's Founding Fathers worried over it, but innocently trusted that we'd have the wisdom to elect statesmen rather than circus performers. A couple of our best presidents have come to us indirectly, by succession... perhaps we'd be better off with a system that threw out the leaders in the primaries, and went with their VP picks.