Considering Gerry Ford

I'm late to jump in and comment on Gerald Ford, but his final memorial service doesn't take place until tomorrow in Grand Rapids, so I figure I've still got time.

The media has no center of gravity anymore, no compass to guide their direction, so it's not really a surprise that they'd treat Ford's passing in some unexpected fashion. In early coverage, one CNN reporter talked about the unprecedented commemoration that Ford would receive. What precisely was (or should be) unprecedented about funeral services for a former president? Ford's presidency was unprecedented in that he never won a national election--in fact, he never won an election outside the bounds of his Congressional district in Michigan. But that was the case all along--it's not like it's a surprise now. I suppose we could've given Ford a cut-rate commemoration, which would have been unprecedented, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch for us to declare that anyone who holds the office of president of the United States--no matter how he or she might get there--should receive a state funeral. Another statement I heard last week was that Ford would leave "mighty big shoes to fill." Not to be disrespectful, but how would that be, exactly? What has Ford's place been in our national life for the past three decades? I'm not exactly sure I've noticed him doing anything in particular. If we go a while with those shoes empty, I don't think it will be a big problem.

The big claim to fame that's being made on Ford's behalf is that, with his strong and straightforward leadership after Watergate, he brought trust back to government. Maybe I'm just getting old and my memory is failing, but when exactly did this trust in government come back? While Jimmy Carter isn't particularly infamous, I'm not sure a lot of people see his presidential portrait and wistfully recall their trust in government. Certainly Ronald Reagan, despite the whitewashing of history many of his supporters insist on today, did not lead a unified nation who trusted him blindly. When exactly did this return to trust in government manifest itself?

Not surprisingly, there have been a couple of good articles on Ford over the last few days. Bob Woodward reported on a two-and-a-half-year-old interview that was embargoed until Ford's death in which Ford strongly disagreed with the decision to go into Iraq. That was a fairly bold position to hold in July 2004, especially when it was dreamed up by refugees from his own administration. Timothy Noah also had a couple of good pieces in Slate. In one, he discusses Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon, a mistake then and, no matter what the consensus seems to believe, a mistake today. People talk about how the country couldn't stand to go through the trauma of a criminal prosecution, and while I'm not sure that's correct, I think that a full investigation would have made us stronger. I don't really care whether Nixon went to jail or not, but it would've been nice to find out exactly what was going on. Instead, Ford's pardon effectively shut down any further investigation. But for what may be the best explanation for why the press seems to be tripping over itself in recalling the wonderful times it had with Gerry Ford, check out this column, in which Timothy Noah explains why Ford's middle-of-the-road bipartisanism represents the pinnacle of Establishment Washington's aspirations. Perhaps this is Ford's true legacy: He was the last of the reasonable Republicans.