From AP:
Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon's scandal-shattered White House as the 38th and only president in America's history never elected to nationwide office1, died Tuesday, said his wife, Betty.Clark Clifford puts him in perspective:
"About his brief presidency there is little that can be said. In almost every way, it was a caretaker government trying to bind up the wounds of Watergate and get through the most traumatic act of the Indochina drama.Sounds reasonable, more or less. I can still remember what I thought at the time--not the brightest bulb on the tree (there were jokes about him having played football without a helmet), and far to the right (Nixon was a much more liberal president). I don't recall feeling particularly...um...healed, and I think the people who talk about Ford 'healing the wounds' of Watergate (including the Boy King himself) would be hard-pressed to explain what that means. I interpret as 'he was there while two years passed and people started to forget'. Still, it could have been a lot worse. It has been a lot worse since--enough worse to make me genuinely sad at his death.
"Ford ... was a likable person who deserves credit for accomplishing the one goal that was most important, to reunite the nation after the trauma of Watergate and give us a breathing spell before we picked a new president."
[That's all, folks]
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