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January 16, 2007
Ford changes views
Following up on my column (see yesterday’s blog entry) on the importance of time and moderation, I read with interest some of President Ford’s comments.
He gave a series of interviews to his hometown paper, The Grand Rapids Press, that were not released until after his death.
In 1981, (shortly after Carter’s presidency ended) 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.”
However, in 1998 he said Carter, “will be looked on as a better president than some comments we hear today.”
I am not sure if time has tempered our view of President Carter, or simply President Ford’s views in general, but time certainly changed his opinion.
Perhaps as Ford grew older, he came to believe that his own short presidency might come to be viewed differently as well. Major events in it, might be fodder for historians and later politicos (left and right) who might find some of his actions during certain challenges at the time to be a least questionable upon a second look:
The Nixon Pardon
The Manner of U.S. Exit from Vietnam
Conditional Amnesty for Draft Dodgers
Military Aid to Indonesia (just prior to its invasion of East Timor)
The U.S. Actions in the Mayaguez Incident
The Helsinki Accords
Supreme Court Appointment of John Paul Stevens
Rising Inflation & "WIN" Buttons as response
I think he realized that there were multiple angles from which to view Presidential actions and that perhaps generously and wisely giving Carter the benefit of the doubt in some areas might help him be insured of receiving that same act of grace from others including his successors.
Posted by: Garibaldi at January 18, 2007 01:29 PM