Whip Oblivion Now
Gerald Ford is dead. My hobbyhorse is Carter-Presidency revisionism, not Ford-Presidency revisionism, but I have a soft spot for any president where you can’t quite remember what happened while he was in the White House. Ford was dealt an economy that Johnson and Nixon had spent ten years wrecking. His only answer to the problem that anyone remembers is the W.I.N. button: Whip Inflation Now. This post takes its title from a contemporaneous satire of W.I.N. that appeared in Mad or Cracked.
History may judge Ford harshly for giving us Dick Cheney. Still, as the saying goes, He Kept Us Out of War.
Comment by Rob —
December 27, 2006 @ 8:44 am
Dick Cheney. And Donald Rumsfeld. And John Snow. And Paul O’Neil
Comment by Charles Dodgson —
December 27, 2006 @ 9:04 am
And the Nixon pardon — beginning what became (with Iran-Contra) a tradition of Republicans pardoning other Republicans for overtly political crimes.
Comment by Jennifer —
December 27, 2006 @ 10:06 am
He was a Ford, not a Lincoln. Which means he was a much more affordable piece of gas-guzzling suckitude.
That metaphor doesn’t work too well.
Comment by Eric Martin —
December 27, 2006 @ 10:10 am
Still, it somehow fits Jennifer.
Comment by Jennifer —
December 27, 2006 @ 10:37 am
How about “He was a Ford, not a Lincoln, which means he freed Nixon rather than the slaves?” Or “He was a Ford, not a Lincoln, which means his wife needed lots of pills to go batshit crazy, rather than have it happen naturally?”
Or even, “He was a Ford, not a Lincoln, which sounds very clever until you think about it and realize it is completely meaningless?”
Trackback by Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator —
December 27, 2006 @ 10:37 am
Former President Gerald Ford dies at 93
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Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon’s scandal-shattered White House as the 38t…
Comment by Eric Martin —
December 27, 2006 @ 10:51 am
Actually, I’ll take em all.
Comment by Jesse Walker —
December 27, 2006 @ 11:36 am
He Kept Us Out of War.
Though not for lack of trying in Angola…
Still, I agree wholeheartedly with this: “I have a soft spot for any president where you can’t quite remember what happened while he was in the White House.” And I’d take either Ford or Carter over any of their successors.
Comment by dsquared —
December 27, 2006 @ 11:38 am
he was not exactly Shackleton when it came to organising a safe and honourable departure though.
Comment by jlw —
December 27, 2006 @ 11:43 am
How about:
“He was a Ford, not a Lincoln, which meant that he wound up in Rancho Mirage rather than Mount Rushmore.”
Comment by Nell —
December 27, 2006 @ 11:48 am
The best things that happened with Ford as president happened in the Congress he’d left: the Church hearings and a much-strengthened Freedom of Information Act (over the furious objections of Cheney and Rumsfeld, who wanted Ford to veto it).
Direct war, yeah. But Ford/Kissinger greenlighted the Indonesian assault on East Timor, which we helped fund.
Comment by Nell —
December 27, 2006 @ 12:01 pm
Oh, and the Mayaguez incident: 41 U.S. troops killed, 50 wounded.
Comment by jlw —
December 27, 2006 @ 12:21 pm
Thinking of other possible Ford/Lincoln comparisons (while standing on line at the bank) I came up with:
“He was a Ford, not a Lincoln, which means he was assassinated by Chevy Chase, not John Wilkes Boothe.”
Trackback by Off the Kuff —
December 27, 2006 @ 3:13 pm
RIP, Gerald Ford…
Former President Gerald Ford passed away yesterday at the age of 93. Former President Gerald R. Ford, who declared “Our……
Trackback by Inactivist —
December 28, 2006 @ 1:33 pm
Round-up of assorted libertarians opining on Gerald Ford…
Cato-at-Liberty’s Daniel Griswold praises Gerald Ford for having facilitated the transformation of the GOP away from isolationism and free-trade barriers and toward internationalism:
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