Ford's own response, a mostly voluntary program called Whip Inflation Now, also failed.Mostly voluntary... and utterly moronic.
(Maybe we can re-cycle the buttons: Whip Islam Now)
Ford was a good man. The media were riding high after their assault on Nixon succeeded, and they weren't about to let Ford accomplish anything at all.
They managed to portray him as a clumsy fool, even though as other Freepers have pointed out he was a great athlete and a Phi Beta Kappa. Al Gore, in contrast, got a D in Nature Studies at Harvard, where his daddy got him admitted, and bill clinton flunked out of Oxford after his political friends got him his Fullbright.
I blush to say that back then, even though I was highly suspicious of Watergate, I believed what they said about Ford.