Saw a news blurb about him this morning.  92 years old!  You never hear much about this guy, good or bad.  What say you?

He's in the hospital, thats bad.

Remember WIN?

Not as good as Chevy.  But about as good Dodge.

Gerald Who?........

He did a tough job well.


Short timer, nothing outstanding.

One of the funniest SNL skits was Dana Carvey as Tom Brokaw recording news announcements of Gerald Ford's death.

"Gerald Ford, dead at 82. He was eaten by wolves."

He was a good Pres. in that he didn muck up the Consitition.

But then he wasn't really in office long enough to do that.

Ford continued as he had in his Congressional days to view himself as "a moderate in domestic affairs, a conservative in fiscal affairs, and a dyed-in-the-wool internationalist in foreign affairs." A major goal was to help business operate more freely by reducing taxes upon it and easing the controls exercised by regulatory agencies. "We...declared our independence 200 years ago, and we are not about to lose it now to paper shufflers and computers," he said.

www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/gf38.html

Hard to be a good president in just two short years.  

He was a crippled President that did as well as he could have under the circumstances.

He didn't do much.  I guess that's good.

judging by his museum, id have to say no.

NO !

Gerald Ford became president because Nixon resigned.  Given the mess the country was in when he became president, he did a good job.  I think the country had a hardon for the Republican party at the time, because of Nixon, so he didn't get re-elected.  

He did a hell of a lot better than the guy who replaced him.

Quoted: He didn't do much.  I guess that's good.

He did give us Justice Stevens- but maybe you can't blame him. Picking judges is like trying to figure what kind of butterfly is going to emerge.

Early in his tenure Stevens took a moderate path. He voted to reinstate capital punishment in the United States and opposed the affirmative action program at issue in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. On the more conservative Rehnquist Court, Stevens tended to side with the more liberal-leaning Justices on issues such as abortion rights, gay rights and federalism. His Segal-Cover score, a measure of liberalism/conservatism of Court members, is -.6, which would place him as the sixth most liberal member of the Court. A transformed lagged behavior measure places him more as more liberal. He is a relatively consistent liberal, but has voted with the conservative bloc in a number of high profile cases, including, for example, his refusal to recognize a right to burn the flag as a speech act in Texas v. Johnson (see below).


1976 official portrait of Justice Stevens.Stevens's jurisprudence has usually been characterized as idiosyncratic; he often adopts unusual or lonely positions on issues. Stevens, who (according to reports) unlike most justices usually writes the first drafts of his opinions himself, is not an originalist (like fellow Justice Antonin Scalia) nor a pragmatist (like Richard Posner) nor does he pronounce himself a cautious liberal (like Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg). He has been considered part of the liberal bloc of the court since the mid-1980s.

In 1983's Michigan v. Long, for example, Stevens dissented from the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the Michigan Supreme Court's interpretation of federal law, arguing that state court decisions granting people rights under the federal constitution that nullify complained-of state action should not be disturbed by federal courts. In 1985's Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Stevens argued against the Supreme Court's famous "strict scrutiny" doctrine for laws involving "suspect classifications", putting forth the view that all classifications should be evaluated on the basis of the "rational basis" test as to whether they could have been enacted by an "impartial legislature."

Stevens was once an impassioned critic of affirmative action, voting in 1978 to invalidate the affirmative action program at issue in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. He also dissented in 1980's Fullilove v. Klutznick, which upheld a minority set-aside program. He gradually shifted his position over the years and voted to uphold the somewhat different affirmative action program at the University of Michigan Law School challenged in 2003's Grutter v. Bollinger.

IIRC, Gerald Ford's REAL name is Leslie King...no shi'ite.

I will say (and, I lived through those times as an adult, so I was aware...)  he was a good president.  Not in the sense that people think, of a dynamic leader, mover shaker and shaper.  Rather, I think he was a good president in the sense that was intended by the Constitution.  Some might say he was a "caretaker" president, or even a "lame duck."  But he kept things going after events which would have destroyed most countries, or turned them into dictatorships after a series of coups and juntas.

People want kings for president: tell us what to do, set a course to follow.  That's not America.  The President is an official, essentially under Congress as it is suposed to represent the People.  The only reason a President has much notice is the President is the Head of State.  Otherwise, the person in that office is intended to be an administrator.   The "personalities", bordering on "celebrities" who have been trying to direct the country are a problem.

SOme have asked rhetorically what made George Washington a great president, some say the best (I agree).  Sure, he helped forge a nation.  But one of the best things about him was that he left office after his term was over.  How many places can you say that about, after a military coup sepaerated one part of a nation/empire from another?

Yes, Gerald Ford was a good administrator/president, and I wish there were more like him, and that the people through the congress ran the country, as intended.

Quoted: Gerald Ford became president because Nixon resigned.  Given the mess the country was in when he became president, he did a good job.  I think the country had a hardon for the Republican party at the time, because of Nixon, so he didn't get re-elected.   He did a hell of a lot better than the guy who replaced him.

The North Vietnamese guessed correctly that Congress wouldn't let him react to their decision to push the final invasion.  They were right.

Did pretty well in the Mayaquez Incident as I recall.

He was better than Carter.

WTF did Ford DO?

He just sat in office between Nixon and Carter.  The GOP idiotically nominated Ford over Reagan in 76, and immediately realized the mistake.

Quoted: WTF did Ford DO? He just sat in office between Nixon and Carter.

How come government always has to be doing something? I like it when government is doing anything, it's usually the only time that they aren't doing anything wrong!

I think there might be a sig line in there.

Quoted: He was a crippled President that did as well as he could have under the circumstances.

+1  He made some critical errors, particularly with how he handled labor and New York.

Quoted: WTF did Ford DO? He just sat in office between Nixon and Carter.  The GOP idiotically nominated Ford over Reagan in 76, and immediately realized the mistake.

If you remember the time there was not much he could do. He had a extremely hostile Congress and was crippled by the Watergate aftermath.

he was the countries comic relief after Nixon.

come on! who didn't laugh when he fell down the stairs of AF1 or get bonked on the head with that golf ball?

Interestingly, Ford was the first and only person to be vice president and president...and was never elected to either office.

I think he was good for the country.

Lousy.

I voted Libertarian Party in the 1976 Election.

Eric The(NeverAgain!)Hun

Considering the circumstances at the time, I think he was good overall.   I don't know much about the early years of his politics, but I have never heard any scandal gossip about him.  Seems like a decent guy.  I like the fact that he and his family are active "outdoor types", too.  

As I reflect on it now (although I didn't feel that way about it at the time-----and was certainly not a Ford supporter), pardoning Nixon----and getting the country beyond Watergate----was the right thing to do-----even though I suspect that that same act is what ultimately resulted in/contributed to Ford's loss to Carter in 1976.

It kind of depends on what your definition of a ''good president'' was back in those days.Gerry was probably better than alot of others who could have been selected to eat that politically spiced shit sammich called post watergate,vietnam,see you ya latter dick and where have all the goodtimes gone mid-seventies crisis we were having.

Excuse my poor memory, but was'nt he the fellow that pardoned all of the Vietnam-era draft dodgers?

Quoted: Excuse my poor memory, but was'nt he the fellow that pardoned all of the Vietnam-era draft dodgers?

That would be Carter. Ford pardoned Nixon, for any potential criminal charges. In both cases the reason given was to "heal the rifts in the country "

No.  But he was a good football player.  And that's all I care about.

I really don't think he was in long enough to tell.  The country was coming off the heels of Vietnam and the "cultural revolution" and then throw in the impending impeachment of the president.

I would not have wanted his job by any means.  

If nothing else he seemed to have been a filler that took some of the heat off of all the turmoil of the time.