The passing of former President Gerald Ford was remarkably charitable. For someone who was never elected to either Vice President or President, and whose actions took years to be recognized as the right things to do, his death was marked with humble missives that glossed over his short and, at the time, not so remarkable Presidency.
Many people commented on his being a former athlete having no connection whatsoever to his frequent physical tumbles as President, more likely to happen if news cameras were turned in his direction. But his pardoning of Richard Nixon, which most likely cost him the next election, wasn't seen as a smart move until years later.
Gerald Ford moved into presidential retirement gracefully and offered quiet support to future presidents from both major parties. His counsel was sought far more often than one would think, given the bumbling character portrayed in the heyday of his presidency by Chevy Chase on NBC's Saturday Night Live.
Here are more blog entries and news stories on Gerald Ford's career and legacy:
What's currently being written about President Gerald Ford around the web...
headlines |
updates via email |
net music countdown |
amazon deals |
blog comments |
ebay auctions |
your comments
Stay Up to Date via Email
Enter your email address here to subscribe to your daily President Gerald Ford update:
Daily news and offers, breaking news and more, from The David Lawrence Show.
Best Sellers at Amazon.com...
By: Douglas Brinkley
List Price: $20.00
Amazon Price: $4.99
Product Description
The ?accidental? president whose innate decency and steady hand restored the presidency after its greatest crisis When Gerald R. Ford entered the White House in August 1974, he inherited a presidency tarnished by the Watergate scandal, the economy was in a recession, the Vietnam War was drawing to a close, and he had taken office without having been elected. Most observers gave him little chance of success, especially after he pardoned Richard Nixon just a month into his presidency, an action that outraged many Americans, but which Ford thought was necessary to move the nation forward.
Many people today think of Ford as a man who stumbled a lot--clumsy on his feet and in politics--but acclaimed historian Douglas Brinkley shows him to be a man of independent thought and conscience, who never allowed party loyalty to prevail over his sense of right and wrong. As a young congressman, he stood up to the isolationists in the Republican leadership, promoting a vigorous role for America in the world. Later, as House minority leader and as president, he challenged the right wing of his party, refusing to bend to their vision of confrontation with the Communist world. And after the fall of Saigon, Ford also overruled his advisers by allowing Vietnamese refugees to enter the United States, arguing that to do so was the humane thing to do.
Brinkley draws on exclusive interviews with Ford and on previously unpublished documents (including a remarkable correspondence between Ford and Nixon stretching over four decades), fashioning a masterful reassessment of Gerald R. Ford?s presidency and his underappreciated legacy to the nation.
By: Yanek Mieczkowski
List Price: $45.00
Amazon Price: $30.00
Product Description
For many Americans, Gerald Ford evokes an image of either an unelected president who abruptly pardoned his corrupt predecessor or an accident-prone klutz who failed to provide skilled leadership. In Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s, Yanek Mieczkowski reexamines Ford's two and a half years in office, showing that his presidency successfully confronted the most vexing crisis of postwar era.
Viewing the 1970s primarily through the lens of economic events, Mieczkowski argues that Ford's understanding of the national economy was better than any modern president, that he oversaw a dramatic reduction of inflation, and that he attempted to solve the energy crisis with judicious policies.
Throughout his presidency, Ford labored under the legacy of Watergate. Democrats scored landslide victories in the 1974 midterm elections, and within an anemic Republican Party, the right wing challenged Ford's leadership, even as pundits predicted the GOP's death. Yet Ford reinvigorated the party and fashioned a 1976 campaign strategy against Jimmy Carter that brought him from thirty points behind to a dead heat on election day.
Mieczkowski draws on numerous personal interviews with former President Ford, cabinet officials, and members of the Ninety-fourth Congress, and he skillfully weaves into his discussion such 1970s cultural phenomena as the spoofs about the president on Saturday Night Live. The first major work on Ford to appear in more than a decade, Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s combines the best of biography and presidential history to paint an intriguing portrait of a president, his times, and his legacy.
By: John Robert Greene
List Price: $15.95
Amazon Price: $10.00
Product Description
This is the first comprehensive study of one of our most popular yet most misunderstood presidents. Reaching well beyond the image of Ford as "healer" of a war-torn and scandal-ridden nation, John Robert Greene extends and revises our understanding of Ford's struggles to restore credibility to the presidency in the wake of Watergate and Vietnam.
Few presidents had ever been asked to achieve so much in so little time against such great adversity. Greene shows that Ford's efforts to lead the nation were severely hampered by Nixon's misdeeds, by America's ignominious disengagement from an unpopular war, and by a watchdog Congress eager to put a brake on presidential power.
Working from a wealth of recently declassified documents, Greene reveals new evidence on Ford's roles in Watergate and challenges the prevailing view of the infamous Mayaguez incident. He argues persuasively that Ford made no "deal" with Nixon, but that his pardon of Nixon was costly nonetheless, for it shadowed his entire presidency thereafter. He also shows that the Mayaguez catastrophe was less a simple "rescue mission" than it was an attempt to revive sagging political fortunes by attacking Cambodia.
In addition, Greene details Ford's rise to prominence within the Republican Party; chronicles the president's problematic relations with his staff, the new Democratic Congress, and Ronald Reagan; sheds new light on the selection and performance of Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller; offers new insights into the election of 1976; and provides the first in-depth look at Ford's Amnesty Program for Vietnam Era Draft Evaders.
Based on interviews with Ford and more than sixty individuals who figured prominently in his presidency and on extensive use of the Ford Library, Greene's study illuminates Ford's valiant efforts during some of the presidency's most troubled years.
This book is part of the American Presidency Series.
By: Thomas M. DeFrank
List Price: $25.95
Amazon Price: $4.19
Product Description
In an extraordinary series of private interviews, conducted over sixteen years with the stipulation that they not be released until after Ford's death, the thirty-eighth president of the United States reveals a profoundly different side of himself: funny, reflective, gossipy, strikingly candid-and the stuff of headlines.
In 1974, award-winning journalist and author Thomas DeFrank, then a young correspondent for Newsweek, was interviewing Vice President Gerald R. Ford when Ford blurted out something astonishingly indiscreet related to the White House, came around his desk, grabbed DeFrank's tie, and told the reporter he could not leave the room until he promised not to publish it. "Write it when I'm dead," he said-and that agreement formed the basis for their relationship for the next thirty-two years.
During that time, they talked frequently, but from 1991 to shortly before Ford's death in 2006, the interviews became something else-conversations between two men in which Ford talked in a way few presidents ever have. Here is the real Ford on his relationship with Richard Nixon (including the 1974 revelation that, in DeFrank's words, "will alter what history thinks it knows about the events that culminated in Ford's becoming president"); Ford's experiences on the Warren Commission; his complex relationships with Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter; his startling, never-before-disclosed discussions with Bill Clinton during the latter's impeachment process; his opinions about both Bush administrations, the Iraq war, and many contemporary political figures; and much more. Here also are unguarded personal musings: about key cultural events; his own life, history, and passions; his beloved wife, Betty; and the frustrations of aging.
In all, it is an unprecedented book: illuminating, entertaining, surprising, heartwarming, and, in many ways, historic.
A time to heal : the autobiography of Gerald R. Ford
By: Gerald R. (1913-2006) Ford
List Price:
Amazon Price: $65.10
A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford
By: Gerald R. Ford
List Price: $3.98
Amazon Price: $749.00
CUSTOMER REVIEW:
A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Geral R. Ford
Having lived through the turbolent sixties and the Watergate era, I was able to more fully appreciate what a great leader Gerald Ford was. He was not a flashy person, but he was steady and calm. He restored a sense of calmness and reliability to a hurting nation.
By: James Cannon
List Price: $24.95
Amazon Price: $6.00
Product Description
Gerald Ford came to the presidency at the time of one of our nation's greatest constitutional crises, the downfall of President Richard M. Nixon in the aftermath of the Watergate affair. His service as president concluded a distinguished career in the House of Representatives during which he served as leader of the Republican Party in the House. With unrestricted access to Gerald Ford's papers, James M. Cannon tells the story of Ford's rise and Nixon's ruin, providing new insights into this troubling period of our history and Ford's role in guiding the nation through it. Cannon tells the story of Ford's difficult early life and the beginnings of his career in politics in the period immediately after World War II. He tells the story of Ford's rise to prominence in the House of Representatives during the 1950s and 1960s, giving us a fascinating picture of the Congress. In addition, in telling us about the personal life of Gerald Ford, he gives us a sense of the price Ford paid for his success.
"James Cannon, formerly national affairs editor at Newsweek and Ford's domestic policy advisor, has written a superbly provocative and arresting biography that traces Ford's life from his July 4, 1913, birth in Omaha, Nebraska, to his September 8,1974, decision to pardon Nixon of the Watergate conspiracy." --Washington Post Book World
James M. Cannon is a journalist and was Domestic Policy Adviser to President Ford and Chief of Staff to Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker.
By: Barry Werth
List Price: $15.95
Amazon Price: $4.90
Product Description
In 31 Days, acclaimed historian Barry Werth takes readers inside the White House during the tumultuous days of August 1974, following Richard Nixon's resignation and the swearing-in of America's "accidental president," Gerald Ford.
The Watergate scandal had torn the country apart. In a dramatic, day-by-day account of the new administration?s inner workings, Werth shows how Ford, caught between political expedience, the country?s demands for justice, and his own moral compass, struggled valiantly to restore the nation?s tarnished faith in its leadership. With deft and refreshing analysis Werth illuminates how this unprecedented political upheaval produced new fissures and battle lines, as well as new opportunities for political advancement for ambitious young men such as Donald Rumsfeld, who had been Nixon?s ambassador to NATO, and Dick Cheney, already coolly efficient as Rumsfeld?s former deputy. A superbly crafted presidential history with all of the twists and turns of a thriller, 31 Days sheds new light on the key players and political dilemmas that reverberate in today?s headlines.
By: Graeme S. Mount
List Price: $24.99
Amazon Price: $6.89
Product Description
On August 9, 1974, President Nixon resigns because of criminal activity in connection with Watergate and flies to California. At noon that day, Gerald R. Ford becomes the 38th president of the United States.
It was left to Gerald Ford to heal a war-torn and scandal-ridden nation and to restore credibility to the presidency in the wake of Watergate and Vietnam. Few presidents have ever been asked to achieve so much in so little time against such great adversity.
In the 895 days that made up his term in office, he would deal with South Vietnam, North Korea, the Helsinki Accord, Cuba, the operational transfer of the Panama Canal, the death of Franco, the invasion of East Timor by Indonesia, public outrage at CIA misdeeds, the US Bicentennial, and Operation Paul Bunyan, a reassurance to South Koreans and a warning to North Koreans.
It is Graeme Mount's belief that developments that changed the world took place when President Ford led the United States. In some of these, he was an instigator; in some, he reacted to events precipitated by others.
Making extensive use of the Gerald Ford Presidential Library, both the archives and the museum, Mount examines the very documents produced by President Ford, members of his cabinet, and the White House staff and through that examination offers a window on the world between August 1974 and January 1976 that provides new insights into a troubling period of US history and Ford's role in guiding the nation through it.
Historian Graeme Mount is the author of some 13 books, including Chile and the Nazis (Black Rose, 2002) and The Diplomacy of War: The Case of Korea (Black Rose, 2004). He has, as well, written extensively on US/Canadian relations in An Introduction to Canadian-American Relations and Invisible and Inaudible in Washington.
By: Mike Venezia
List Price: $7.95
Amazon Price: $3.82
• Quotation Saturday: America the Beautiful
Mamacita says: No matter what the weather might be where you live, today is the Glorious Fourth. It?s not the weather that makes it glorious. 1. America, thou half-brother of the world, with something good and bad of every land. ?Philip James Bailey 2. America is the country where you can buy a lifetime supply of aspirin for one dollar and use it up in two weeks. ?John Barrymore 3. The real democratic American idea is, not that every man shall be on a level with every other man, but
• Gerald R. Ford
"Things are more like they are now than they have ever been."
• Racine 4th Fest Parade Lineup
For anyone attending the parade tomorrow, or watching CAR25's live coverage, below is a lineup for the 2009 Racine 4th Fest parade. ( Click here to download a printable copy of the lineup to take to the parade. ) Parade Lineup 001. First Team Trooper Color Guard 001a. U.S. Flag, Fourth Fest Flag, and Military Representatives 002. Jim Deibler, Fourth Fest President 003. Honorary Parade Marshals: Police Chief Kurt Wahlen, Fire Chief Steve Hansen, Public Works Commissioner Rick Jones 004. Honor
• 2009 NBA Draft Grades: Which teams passed with flying colors?
There was some exciting action during last Thursday?s NBA Draft. Ironically enough, more of the excitement was produced by trades outside of the actual draft. Several teams created some cap space, unloaded aging/pricey talent, or simply stood pat. Others went for gold, trading up for early picks, or trading down to package a few. Almost every team did something to get a little bit better for next season, though. See who did, and see who missed out. Eastern Conference Atlantic Division
• VIDEO: Billie Jean King exclusive interview
Wimbledon will finish this weekend and what better way to kick off your celebration than with the legendary Billie Jean King. I had the opportunity to sit down with King for an exclusive interview at last year's Convention where she won the NCAA's Gerald R. Ford Award. She was vibrant, funny and very sassy, pulling lipstick from her trouser sock to reapply before the cameras started rolling. And, for all you American Wimbledon fans out there, you should know that BJK says it's pronounced Wim
Related items from eBay...
Previously: Mitt Romney >>
Next: Saddam Hussein >>
Was this helpful? Buy David a Starbucks® Mocha via PayPal!
David loves his Starbucks® mocha. Skim, no whip, please. To easily and painlessly send David a selection from Starbucks® and paying via PayPal, just click on the button below your choice:
 |
|
|
 |
Listeners who have bought David a Starbucks® Mocha:
Chuck Craig Becky Bob Chris Dana Dean Gary Heidi Jen Jim Faucett (link?) Kevin Leo Lili Linda Michael Randy Ray Scott Sophie Sophie (II) Warren (link?)Digg This! article or tag it at del.icio.us
Link to this article from your own website
Just copy this HTML code block. Then, paste it into your own code:
Up To The Minute Bargains
Want an e-Mini-Mall for your site?
If you need help
You can always call in to the show at the number listed above, or send David an email using the link above.
To repeat: You can always call in to the show at the number listed above, or send David email using the link above.
After a 30 year career on radio in markets from New York to San Francisco to satellite and network, David H. Lawrence XVII decided to make a change. He hung up his headphones and retired from hosting 3 network/satellite radio shows to head to Los Angeles, to concentrate solely on acting in front of the camera.
Lili VonSchtupp* needed a fresh start. She moved to Washington DC and got her dream job. "I did affiliate relations for Online Tonight with David Lawrence. I slowly worked my way into the producer's chair by impressing David with my assets. (not those assets), my ability to make a CAT5 cable Ethernet cable, type (those of you in the chat room-shut up!) and work a phone system.
