Gerald Rudolph Ford, 1913-2006

“I am not a saint, and I am sure I have done things I might have done better or differently, or not at all. I have also left undone things that I should have done. But I believe and hope that I have been honest with myself and with others, that I have been faithful to my friends and fair to my opponents, and that I have tried my very best to make this great government work for the good of all Americans.”

Gerald Ford

From The Patriot Post: Gerald Rudolph Ford, the 38th President of the United States, died last week at the age of 93. Confirmed as Vice President following Spiro Agnew’s corruption-tinged resignation on 10 October 1973, and sworn in as President following Richard Nixon’s resignation on 9 August 1974, Ford had the distinction of being the only U.S. President never elected to either of those offices.

Gerald Ford was a Rockefeller Republican and frequent political foe of Ronald Reagan. As a Congressman he was usually on the wrong side of the battle for the soul of the Republican Party in the 1960s and 70s. However, in his most important role, President of the United States, Ford had a refreshing quality. A consolation during one of the most politically troubling times in our nation’s living memory, Jerry Ford brought dignity to the office of the President. Politically, President Ford’s political tenure may not have been a particularly successful one—the economic and foreign policy woes that plagued the country upon his ascension remained in place at his exit—but the criticism that Ford’s two-and-a-half years in office “paved the way” for the disastrous Carter years hardly seems fair.

Rather, we will remember President Ford as a tribute to the durability and justness of the American system of government. As he said in his address to the American people upon assuming the presidency, “I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your President with your prayers. And I hope that such prayers will also be the first of many... Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a Government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a Higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.”

President Ford is survived by his wife, Betty, four children and numerous grandchildren.