Jerry Ford, RIP

The NYT has a long retrospective on President Ford. I shook his hand in his office as House Minority Leader when our FSO class, the Fighting 86th [we were all going to Vietnam as CORDS advisors], was introduced to Ford and House Speak McCormack on our introductory 101 FSO course's meet-and-greet sallies around DC.

Ford was sort of famous as the less voluble half of the Ev and Jerry Show, a TV half-hour touting Repub goals and achievements, although they were the minority party. Too bad there are no Repub House Members in the leadership who could pair with John McCain in an update of that rare Repub public outreach project. [Ev was Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, once called "butter-tonsils" in the quaint argot of the day.

Sadly, when Jerry Ford became President, his political tin-ear asserted itself, first with the choice of Nelson Rockefeller as VP and second when he did not choose Ronald Reagan to be his VP. His assertion that Poland was free and that the Soviets did not rule Eastern Europe sealed the public's conviction that this guy was a couple bricks short of a load.

Jerry was lucky when two crazed women in California failed in assassination attempts on him in Sacramento and San Francisco, and he was also lucky in his placid family life which ensued after his wise choice in 1980, when he declined a VP slot on the eventual winning ticket.

Unlike a couple of ex-Presidents who seek publicity at the cost of frequently making fools of themselves, Ford was a man who was comfortable in his skin and, in the words of an observer, "innately decent."

Maybe we should luck into another "unelected president" as the eager beavers seeking the job all have the character defect of hubris, as well as others too numerous to enumerate in a short blog.