Today, on his birthday, we remember Pres. Gerald R. Ford, 1974-77. “Not a Lincoln”, he said, “but a Ford”. A good stab at autobiography. In fact he was a place-holder while the country caught its breath after 6 years of Nixon. He promised to Whip Inflation Now, told NY City to Drop Dead, sort of, but mostly will be remembered for pardoning Nixon, a guilty felon if ever we saw one (although small fry next to the still at-large Bush gang). The pardon may have cost him the election to Carter; also perhaps his accident-prone personae, brightly underlined in early episodes of Saturday Night Live. Here Nixon is his biggest bump. My favorite Ford line, “We gave Jimmy Carter the economy on a silver platter . . . and he blew it.”
