Ford a f*ckin' Fraud

[ProudDad]

During one of the darkest days of the Watergate scandal, Nixon secretly confided in Ford, at the time the House minority leader. He begged for help. He complained about fair-weather friends and swore at perceived rivals in his own party. "Tell the guys, goddamn it, to get off their ass and start fighting back," Nixon pleaded with Ford in one call recorded by the president's secret taping system.

And Ford did. "Anytime you want me to do anything, under any circumstances, you give me a call, Mr. President," he told Nixon during that May 1, 1973, conversation. "We'll stand by you morning, noon and night."

This and other previously unpublished transcripts of their calls, documents and personal letters provide a portrait of an intensely personal friendship dating to the late 1940s but so hidden that few others were even aware of it. Until now, the relationship between the two presidents has been portrayed largely as a matter of political necessity, with Nixon tapping Ford for the vice presidency in late 1973 because he was a confirmable choice on Capitol Hill.

But the tapes, documents and two lengthy recent interviews with Ford before his death this week, conducted for a future book and unpublished until after his death, show that the close political alliance between the two men seriously influenced Ford's eventual decision to pardon Nixon, the most momentous decision of his short presidency and almost certainly the one that cost him any chance of winning the White House in his own right two years later. Ford became president on Aug. 9, 1974; he pardoned Nixon just a month later.

"I think that Nixon felt I was about the only person he could really trust on the Hill," Ford said during the 2005 interview.

Ford returned the feeling.

"I looked upon him as my personal friend. And I always treasured our relationship. And I had no hesitancy about granting the pardon, because I felt that we had this relationship and that I didn't want to see my real friend have the stigma," Ford said in the interview.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=132

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. kick. n/t

[lumpy]

2. Friendship before country and justice.

x

[sandnsea]

3. Republicans, same as always

I'm disappointed, but not at all surprised. It is just not a coincidence that his adminisration spawned Rumsfeld and Cheney, covered up the JFK assassination, and pardoned Nixon. Scum, the lot of them.

[Luminous Animal]

4. I don't suppose we could have a REAL link for this. (n/t)

[greenman3610]

5. Ford's gutlessness in embargoing his views on the war

just cement my view of him.
He was willing to countenance the deaths of
thousands rather than embarrass his party.