He did a plenty people just have short memories. Carter and Ford were politically more or less the same. Ford was the one who started us on a hands off policy on such thugs as Amin, Khomeini, Arafat, Qaddafi, Saddam, and others. It was his E.O. which put a prohibition against covert ops resulting in assassination against foreign heads of state. The result was thugs leaders knew it was safe to sponsor terrorist cells after that.
politics is relative. Compared to Carter Ford did little harm. Of course he wasn't in the job very long. Ford was not as much of an human rights pacifist like Carter. So I think on issues like the Panama Canal, the Iranian situation and economic policy he would have been better. I remember those days well and voted for Ford only because the other choice was Jimmy Carter.