Great pictures. Thanks for posting. Condolences to Betty Ford and the rest of President Ford's family and friends.
Prayers for his family......his presidency helped heal this country and the party.... thank you President Ford
Anyone have any good photos of Ford as a football player at Michigan?
The left always demonizes republican presidents as either (a) stupid (b) evil or (c) evil and stupid. With Ford, they couldnt make evil stick, so they went with stupid. But he wasnt inarticulate, so they decided to portray him as so clumsy and unaware that he was barely able to walk. A goofball who cared only about football and would knock everything around him down as he plowed through a room. Even the kid movie "Gus" about a field goal kicking mule took such unwarranted shots at him. He deserved better.
President Ford will have as his legacy that he replaced Richard Nixon and began a healing process in the wake of Watergate and Vietnam, a process which was completed by Ronald Reagan. For that, he deserves our respect and gratitude.
Maybe the caption for the last photos should read Medal of Freedom instead of Medal of Honor, bestowed by Congress.
Bump!
As they say "Thanks for the memories".
Fantastic photos; cheers for posting them.
Condolences from this side of the pond.
By JAMES TARANTO
Gerald Ford, RIP
Gerald Ford, the only president never to be elected to either that office or the vice presidency is dead. Ford, 93, breathed his last in Rancho Mirage, Calif., last night; the proximate cause of death is undisclosed, but it "followed a year of medical problems," the Associated Press reports.
In 1973, when Spiro Agnew resigned, Ford became the first vice president appointed under the 25th Amendment. The following year he ascended to the presidency when Richard Nixon, facing impeachment over the Watergate scandal, called it quits. Ford pardoned Nixon, declaring "our long national nightmare is over," then sought election is his own right in 1976. He narrowly beat Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination, then fell well behind in the polls against Jimmy Carter, before coming back to lose narrowly, 50.1% to 48%.
Ford was the oldest ever ex-president, living 34,133 days; he surpassed Ronald Reagan's record last month. He also served longer in Congress than any other president, 9,103 days, or more than one-fourth of his life. He is survived by his wife, Betty, who said in a statement, "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country."
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1975: President Ford, Ford's Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld, and Rumsfeld's assistant, Richard Cheney
Back when Ford was President, Brokaw used every opportunity to portray Ford as an awkward and stupid man. The implication was Nixon chose Ford as his vice president because of his stupidity. Today Brokaw was singing Fords praises. I doubt if he even once mentioned that he (Brokaw)had been wrong in his assessment of Ford in the 1970s.
First let me tell you of my personal experience with Gerald Ford. Ford when he was Minority leader of the House was close friends with an Republican congressman from Ohio. I owned a highly rated radio station in this Ohio Congressman's district. When I went to Washington D.C., which I did fairly frequently, I always called on my Congressman. >He would nearly always invite me to have lunch with him and quite often his good friend Congressman Ford would dine with us.
Ford was a very bright man. Talk with him for a minute or two and his intelligence was apparent. He had also been a starter on a Michigan football team that won the national championship.
How many awkward and stumbling people ever get a starting position on a National Championship Michigan Football team?
That means he must be a less than bright athlete, right? Wrong!!! Ford graduated 3rd in his law school class at Yale. He also won a phi beta kappa key. How many dummies do you think graduate 3rd from the Yale law school while earning a phi beta kappa key? None would be a good answer.
Gerald Ford was not a great public speaker. But he was a brilliant man as anyone who tried to debate him one on one certainly knows.
He took over this nation at the depth of Watergate. There was 14 percent inflation and over 9 percent unemployment. He took the heat to put Watergate behind us. He took the proper steps to cut inflation and unemployment in half. He healed a very sick nation and in return got attacked daily in the main stream media.
It angers me that media types trash men like Ford and Reagan when they are alive and then praise them when they are dead.
I take comfort in the fact that the media anchors receive praise while they are alive, but I believe they will be trashed for centuries after their deaths.
Even the media anchors now understand what a great job Gerald Ford did as president... even with the total opposition of the media.