[Aeronaut]

Rest in peace President Ford.

[Coldwater Creek]

Former President Ford deserves to be treated just like any other president, even if he was simply in the right place at the right time. What does not being elected have to do with anything?

[o-n-money]

Just because you are smug doesn't mean you are among the elite thinkers.(see Mass.Senators)

President Ford was a decent man. Todays Pols can learn a bit from him.

RIP

[nctexan]

Thanks for posting. I'm surprised that Jim Wooten is allowed his position on the AJC's editorial board with thoughts like this.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

"JFK may have effected athleticism for the newsreels, but Ford was the genuine article."

Kennedy affected athleticism. Otherwise, this was a very good article.

[metesky]

Geez CW, the AJC tumbling to something we've known for years? Who'd a thunk it?

I do have to admit though that I was never comfortable with the slogan, "Re-elect President Ford". He should have canned that and just run against Jimmah on what the people of Georgia tried to tell us about Cahtah.

Of course 16 years later no one listened to what the folks down in Arkansas tried to tell us about Bubba either.

[JohnLongIsland]

this is the same media that swears they have never seen bubba cheat at golf...

[Calpernia]

And I disagree. Ford WAS elected Vice President.

[NewLand]

“...I never felt... This was just the way I felt...as a ...liberal.”

This pretty much sums up the liberal process; all 'feelings' and no time for facts.

Good post CW...Happy New Year!

[ALPAPilot]

Demagogue: (just about any Democrat)

A leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace. A flatterer of the people.

I just can't figure out whether the media falls for it or they just count on the elecorate to be affected.

[mfish13]

Kerry is a dunce. Carter is book smart but has no common sense. Kennedy was trying to live up to the image his father wanted to portray in public. Dukakis? Anyone who looks that goofy riding a tank should stay home. The MSM always make the Republican Presidents out to be intellectually inferior. That is because the MSM knows better than the Americans who elect them what is "Best" for the country.

[HawaiianGecko]

“He had never been elected, period, so I never felt he deserved to be there to begin with. This was just the way I felt then, as a young man and as a writer and a liberal.”

Chevy obviously doesn't understand the concept of the tyranny of the majority. Our constitution doesn't require that the President be elected, otherwise it wouldn't have a line of succession with the Speaker of the House third in line. A person elected by half of one congressional district.

I'm certain that Gerry Ford quite properly followed Agnew into office, and that every 'I' was dotted and 'T' was crossed in accordance with our constitution. Ignorant liberals have a tendency to think that if things don't work out to their liking then something criminal must have happened.

Remember, Chase's worldly talents are that he is funny, can stumble on demand and act like a fool. 

[Colonel Kangaroo]

The apotheosis of buffoonery:

One Jeff MacNelly cartoon on the inept Carter hit home more than all the tedious Dem attacks on the intellect of Reagan, Ford and GW.

[CyberAnt]

As I have said many times before .. making a baffoon out of repubs is just the normal media practice.

Bush was called stupid, idiot .. but he's the only president ever to hold a MBA from Harvard Business School. That is no small accomplishment. Gore on the otherhand flunked out of law school - and was thrown out of divinity school for drug use - but he was always lauded as being smarter than Bush. Remember, Kerry said, "I can't believe I'm being beaten by that idiot". Such smug arrogance will be their undoing.

Remember, it's not what you do or don't do that counts with the media .. it's whether you're a dem or a repub. One of the latest acts of lunacy by the left .. an Oscar for Gore's "Inconvenient Truth".

[Wolfstar]

The basis for that misperception about most conservatives and Republicans is that by and large they come from places unfamiliar to the New York-Washington media establishment.

Generally good article. However, let's not pull punches, as almost all writers do when dancing around the truth, as in the above paragraph.

The "basis for that misperception" has little to do with misguided establishment folk who are unfamiliar with fly-over country. Most of the people presently in big media, academia and show biz grew up in places other than New York, DC, and Los Angeles.

The reason they have that attitude is because, to one degree or another, they are all "limousine" Marxists. As such, they are past masters at using the tools of propaganda to further their agenda. They move in concert, much like a school of fish, always swimming along in synch without any discernible message being sent from the fish at the head of the group.

[StarfireIV]

“He had never been elected, period, so I never felt he deserved to be there to begin with. This was just the way I felt then, as a young man and as a writer and a liberal.”

There it is, a fabrication based upon opinion and played over and over until, like an obnoxious advertisement, it wears ruts into the public consciousness.

This is and has been their MO for years.

[jordan8]

Ford was a nothing of a politician and President, let's not mythologize the man. Yes, he was a nice man, but so effing what? Your neighbor Fred is a nice man. "Nice man" in politics is shorthand for compliant victim. Republicans and establishment conservatives are easily portrayed as buffoons because nobody respects a patsy.

[pa_dweller]

JFK may have effected athleticism for the newsreels, but Ford was the genuine article

It's probably irritatingly off-topic but, will these people never learn the difference between 'affected' and 'effected'?

[Democratshavenobrains]

I think people thought H.W. Bush was a bit of a whiner because of Dana Carvey's impression of him. Carvey even admitted that he sounds more like Paul Lynn than Bush.

[Bob Eimiller]

Bump