Matthew Rothschild (Progressive Magazine) nails it on the head regarding Gerald Ford

[zulchzulu]

My thanks to Matt for nailing on the real legacy of Gerald Ford. Nowhere will you find the MSM suckups mentioning Ford's REAL legacy.

Gerald Ford, Unsentimentally
By Matthew Rothschild
December 27, 2006
http://progressive.org/mag_wx122706#comment-5553

Sorry, but I refuse to let my tear ducts open over the death of Gerald Ford.

There’s something profoundly undemocratic and vaguely medieval about the almost mandatory salutes that we, the people, are supposed to offer when a former President dies.

The niceties of custom all too often reinforce the habits of blind obedience to the unworthy wielders of power.

Say no ill of the dead, we are told.

Hogwash. Let’s look at Gerald Ford’s record.

The first thing he did was to pardon Richard Nixon, even though ten days previously he had said that the special prosecutor should proceed against “any and all individuals” and a year before, he averred that “I do not think the public would stand for it.”

The pardon short-circuited the necessary prosecution of Nixon, which would have served as a salutary check on future inhabitants of the Oval Office. Instead, the pardon set a precedent for such flagrant lawbreakers as we have in the White House today.

If impeachment of Bush and Cheney may be just a remote possibility, prosecution and incarceration remain inconceivable. And so Bush and Cheney, thanks to Ford, can float comfortably above the law.

On domestic policy, Ford was a standard issue Republican, vetoing social spending bills, cutting food stamps and housing and education programs, infamously denying aid to New York City while all the while boosting Pentagon spending. And, in a move Bush and Cheney would have applauded, he proposed the nation’s first official secrets act to provide criminal penalties for the unauthorized disclosure of classified material.

On foreign policy, Ford was damnable.

He fronted for Pinochet in Chile, and kept aid flowing to that vicious strongman.

And on December 6, 1975, Ford and Henry Kissinger flew to Jakarta to meet with dictator Suharto and to give him a green light to invade East Timor.

According to a declassified State Department cable, here was part of their conversation.

Suharto to Ford and Kissinger: “We want your understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action.”

Ford: “We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We understand the problem you have and the intentions you have.”

Kissinger: “We understand your problem and the need to move quickly, but I am only saying that it would be better if it were done after we returned.”

Ford and Kissinger returned to the United States, and Suharto launched his invasion hours later.

Suharto’s invasion and occupation cost the lives of 200,000 Timorese.

But never mind. We’re not supposed to remember those things. Just that Jerry Ford was such a nice guy.

[JohnyCanuck]

1. And the Empire Mourned….Dissecting the Big Lie

And the Empire Mourned….Dissecting the Big Lie
by Jason Miller


“If we ever pass out as a great nation we ought to put on our tombstone 'America died from a delusion that she had moral leadership'.”
--Will Rogers

"It is only in folk tales, children's stories, and the journals of intellectual opinion that power is used wisely and well to destroy evil. The real world teaches very different lessons, and it takes willful and dedicated ignorance to fail to perceive them."
--Noam Chomsky

With the intensity of Dale Earnhardt, Jr vying for victory in the Daytona 500, America’s mainstream media outlets have been racing furiously to imbue the citizenry of the Empire with unusually large doses of heavily choreographed agitprop.

Another unindicted US war criminal has casually ridden off into a peaceful crimson sunset. In response, pundits, talking heads, reporters and various other infotainment personnel are working feverishly to perpetuate America’s collective delusion that we embody integrity, decency, and enlightened values.

Like virtually all of his predecessors and successors in the White House (regardless of their party affiliation), Gerald Ford was guilty of a host of egregious offenses against the human race. But the Big Lie must not die.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/4313

[mrdmk]

2. #1 about Jerry Ford's Presidency, he was never elected by the people

He was appointed every step of the way!

[valerief]

3. Just like Bush 43, first through the courts and then through Diebold. nt

[zulchzulu]

4. What Ford said about the Iraq War

“Rumsfeld and Cheney and the President made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction. … And now, I’ve never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/27/AR2006122701558.html

Why aren't any of the MSM suckups saying ANYTHING about this?

There is more interesting opinion on Ford regarding how, despite how much he hated the Nixonian version of the Imperial Presidency, he spawned that very thing:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/122806.html

Ford is responsible for the Presidential Free Pass Card for any future presidents that commit impeachable offenses with his pardon of Nixon.

[Straight Shooter]

5. Outside our local post office, a very tattered flag was hoisted to half-mast.

Normally that tattered flag bothers me a lot, but in consideration of Gerald Ford's legacy, I find the tattered flag appropriately symbolic.

[Morgana LaFey]

6. Whew!

Heavy.

[EVDebs]

7. Sorry, first thing he did was enable the Single Bullet theory on Warren Report nt

[Raster]

8. An upper-level rethuglican foot solder and an accomplice on a global scale.

I guess compared to the model we currently have, even Ford looks good. Though I'm not crying either.
:kick:12!

[SaveElmer]

9. I wonder if Mr. Rothschild would mourn any former President...

I could run down a litany of disagreeable, downright reprehensible actions on the part of good progressive Democratic Presidents with equal ease...

No one here is opening their tear ducts at Fords death, merely expressing an appropriate amount of grief, many saying they thought he was a basically decent guy, and expressing sympathy for his family...

There will be plenty of time to discuss Ford's legacy later on, I don't understand why some always view the time when the family of the deceased is at its most vulnerable, to decide to trash the guy they don't like.