Former President Gerald Ford Dead at 93 367
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 does it best (Score:3, Interesting)
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...)
The Accidential (Accident Prone?) President (Score:5, Interesting)
Also he is the only Eagle Scout to ever be (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, the East Timorese with sorely miss him (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Just a bit of reminiscing.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Betty Ford.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Let the SOB rot in hell (Score:2, Interesting)
Rule of law has to be for everybody, not just those without the power to adjust the judicial process to their taste.
Re:The King is Dead, Long Live the King (Score:3, Interesting)
Wait a minute... (Score:2, Interesting)
Helsinki Accords (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Cnn does it best (Score:4, Interesting)
There's your bias right there. Honest? That's completely laughable. Best for the country? Pah-lease.
Ford is a man who let a crook go free for the benefit of the Republican party. Just imagine Nixon, a dirty Republican, and 4-5 years of a trial where everyone knew he had broken the law. Reagan would have never made it into office in a political climate like that. And all of Nixon's cronies such as Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush Sr, would have had their careers ruined.
No, Ford's actions were for the benefit of the only person who elected him to the position of President of the United States: Richard Nixon.
Re:He took JFK secrets to his grave (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.jfkfiles.com/jfk/html/faq.htm [jfkfiles.com]
Don't let silly facts get in the way of good 'ol paranoia.
Re:He took JFK secrets to his grave (Score:3, Interesting)
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 [independence.net]
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?
Re:Forgive and forget? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.