Posted on 01/12/2007 1:45:53 PM PST by NormsRevenge
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - In 25 years of interviews with his hometown paper that could only be released upon his death, former President Ford once called Jimmy Carter a "disaster" who ranked alongside Warren Harding, and said Ronald Reagan received far too much credit for ending the Cold War.
"It makes me very irritated when Reagan's people pound their chests and say that because we had this big military buildup, the Kremlin collapsed," Ford told The Grand Rapids Press.
The best president of his lifetime, Ford said, was a more moderate Republican: Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Harry Truman "would get very high marks" for his handling of foreign crises, Ford said. He also praised Richard Nixon as a foreign policy master, despite the Watergate scandal that drove him from office.
Ford considered John F. Kennedy overrated and Bill Clinton average. He admired George H.W. Bush's handling of the Persian Gulf War and had mixed opinions of Carter, who defeated Ford in 1976.
In 1981, Ford said: "I think Jimmy Carter would be very close to Warren G. Harding. I feel very strongly that Jimmy Carter was a disaster, particularly domestically and economically. I have said more than once that he was certainly the poorest president in my lifetime."
But two years later, he praised Carter's performance on the Panama Canal treaty, China and the Middle East. And in 1998, he said Carter "will be looked on as a better president than some comments we hear today."
"He was a very decent, fine individual," Ford told the paper. "There were no major mistakes. There just weren't a lot of exciting results."
Ford's gave the interviews on the condition that his remarks be withheld until after his death.
According to the newspaper, Ford declined to rate George W. Bush, saying he did not know him well enough.
Ford said Reagan, who challenged him unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination in 1976, was "a great spokesman for attractive political objectives" such as a balanced budget and defeating communism, "but when it came to implementation, his record never matched his words."
Reagan was "probably the least well-informed on the details of running the government of any president I knew," Ford said. In a separate interview, he said Reagan "was just a poor manager, and you can't be president and do a good job unless you manage."
Ford contended his own negotiation of the Helsinki accords on human rights did more to win the Cold War than Reagan's military buildup. Other key factors were the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Europe after World War II and the establishment of NATO, he said.
"When you put peace, prosperity and human rights against poverty, a massive unsuccessful military program and a lack of human rights, communism was bound to collapse," he said. "No president, no Democrat or Republican, can claim credit for those programs. I'll tell you who deserves the credit — the American people."
Anywhere his record didn't match his words is because "managers" in Congress were kissing Tip O'neil's donkey, instead of fighting and leading.
If Newt adopted Ford's philosophy, there never would have been a revolution in 94.
the problem is that ford was a political man.
He knew how to do politics and was advancing himself in the House.
The problem is the Masters of Mediocracy are STILL in charge of the Republican Party!
The mediocrity embodied in Ford with a go along with the USSR to get along with the USSR is infesting the back to 9/10 mentality of people like McCain, Guiliani, Lott, Specter.
Ford, never was too bright. He is getting a lot of good mileage out of dying.
"I won a nickname, "The Great Communicator." But I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference: It was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation— from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in principles that have guided us for two centuries. They called it the Reagan revolution. Well, I'll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common sense. "
-The Carter slap got my attention (headline), but the truth is these quotes from Ford just make him look smaller.
Dear sayfer bullets,
Is Mr. Ford now dead long enough that we may criticize him?
I'm not one who was on the Gerald Ford bandwagon.
In his finer moments, he was a mediocrity.
The envy-filled Reagan criticism gives us some inkling of what he was when not at his finest.
sitetest
Exactly. Reagan was a leader; Carter, by contrast, was a paper pusher.
An excellent summary. Ford couldn't carry Reagan's shoes.
I love Ronnie, but he did a sh-t job of keeping spending under control, as fiscal discipline was not popular with the "Reagan Democrats."
Considering the following, I think it might have been wise for Ford to bite his tongue about Carter.
Average inflation under Ford: 8.6%
Average inflation under Carter: 9.7%
Average unemployment under Ford: 7.3%
Average unemployment under Carter: 6.5%
The Dow performed better under Ford, but Carter appointed Volcker...
In other words, neither was great, but Ford really shouldn't have been calling Carter a disaster economically when you consider what Carter was given...
Even in his present condition, Ford could defend the country better than Carter ever did.
Harding demobilized, and cut the top tax rate from 90% to 20% (or something like that). He ushered in the 1920s boom that set the stage for our beating back Nationalist Socialism. What's not to like?
are you challenging Woodward the Great??? how dare you? /s
:)
Worse than sour grapes... Envy and jealousy. Gerry Ford was a poor president relative to Reagan. He was lucky to be followed by the worst president of our lifetime.
So long, Gerry. Anything good that I thought about you will now be filed away and never brought back to see the light of day.
As a closet globalist appeaser, it should.
Sure, he talked them out of the Cold War at Helsinki. ROFL!
Right - and next we'll hear that his WIN (Whip Inflation Now) lapel pins did more than Reagan's tax cuts to spur the economic recovery of the 80's.
ping
Thanks for the ping.
You're right! :)
Again, the former required the later. You cannot go from a loose money policy to a tight money policy without experiencing a temporary contraction/slowdown in the economy during the transition. You can't kill inflation, and build a basis for sound economic growth, without experiencing some pain. This was well understood by the "supply side" or "Austrian School" economists and understood and accepted by Reagan.
If you criticize Volker in this you can't avoid criticizing Reagan as well. There was distance between them on this policy.
It must've been his refusal to meet Solzhenitsyn when he was expelled from the USSR that did the trick
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