We interrupt the Corporatist State Media's Saint Gerald Ford Memorial Beautification Propagandafest for this report from the reality-based community... All right, I've had up to here with this Canonization of Ford by the Corporatist State media. Can we all take a deep breath and contemplate Gerald Ford as a politician, and how his actions belied his bumblin' "regular guy" persona? Well, perhaps a two-by-four up side your head is necessitated... Selected, not elected. Sound familiar?

Heal the nation? I think not. More like the ultimate enabler. Thanks to Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon, the seed of Criminal Republican Rule was thereby fostered and allowed to grow and flourish in a direct timeline from Nixon's criminal enterprise to the present criminal and illegitimate rule of Dear Misleader. Personified by the likes of Nixon WH war criminal Henry Kissinger, and "youngsters" Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld... (more)

"Nice guy" or not, Gerald Ford compiled arguably a reactionary right-wing voting record in Congress during his 1949-1973 tenure. From the era of McCarthyism through Cold War militarism, to supporting the Vietnam War, to opposing Civil Rights, and from opposing as a congress-critter, to ultimately, vetoes of much Progressive social legislation once installed as Chief Executive. How else you think he rose to the rank of Repugnant minority leader and selection as VEEP/POTUS?

So he was a healer, not a divider? GMAFB!

To recite a short litany of Ford's ills (or evils, if you will) -

1. There's his broken promise not to run for Prez in '76.


2. His complicity in the whitewash of JFK's murder as a member of the Warren Commission.


3. His obstruction of the Church Committee investigations of an out of control state security apparatus.


4. His naming, then commissioning, CIA director Poppy Bush to hype the Soviet Military threat (later used by RayGun to to obscenely inflate our military budget).


5. His participation in the failed attempt to impeach Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.


6. And lastly Ford and Kissinger's green-lighting of Indonesia's occupation and genocide in East Timor in 1975 that left over 200,000 people dead.

Amy Goodman covered much of this in Wednesday's DemocracyNow show with interviews with several folks in the know, including Brad Simpson of the National Security Archives and journalist Alan Nairn on the Ford/Kissinger green-light of East Timor invasion, Journalist Robert Parry on Ford's legacy and the Bush MisAdministration's roots in the Ford WH, and Nation magazine publisher emeritus Victor Navasky on the possibility of an Alexander Haig brokered deal to pardon Nixon.

Victor Navasky: Let's see, in August of 1974, which was about a week before Nixon resigned, General Hague took Gerry Ford for a walk in the rose garden, and told him that Nixon was going bonkers and they had to get him out of there, and there were four possible ways to do that. The first three turned out to not realistic. But the fourth, he said, was if you would promise to pardon him after you become president, I think he would agree to resign.

Now, some years later Ford wrote about this in his memoir. And, someone, and his memoirs were being kept secret as they had sold publication rights and he had signed a contract saying he wouldn't talk about it until the book came out. And someone who had access to it asked me if I wanted to read it. And, I said not particularly, but I would, and it turned out that there was this one chapter that dealt with this conversation. And, the way Ford told the story, he put a gloss of innocence on it...

...After Hague took Ford for a walk in the rose garden, Ford writes in his memoir that he came back to his office, and he mentioned this to an aide of his named, Bob Hartman, and the aide said, and then what did you say after you heard that? And, Ford said well, I didn't say anything. And, the aide said, gee, that's not good, silence implies assent. Because Ford had asked Hague well, is it possible to pardon someone before he is indicted? And Hague said yes, we checked it out with our lawyers and it is. So Ford says, he then went to sleep and he didn't say anything to Betty about it and the next morning he got up and he mentioned it to another aide, a fellow named Jack Marsh. And Marsh said, and then what did you say? And, Ford said, I didn’t say anything, and this aide said, gee, that could be a time bomb.

So, Ford then writes, that he then went and called General Hague and read him a statement, which he reprints in his book, and the statement said, nothing I did or didn't say yesterday should be taken to mean that I did or didn't agree to pardon or not to pardon Richard Nixon. And, he writes it as a kind of proforma thing, and the way I read it was it was a an attempt to put a gloss of innocence on a deal they had made. And this is a possible obstruction of justice, and that it’s something that he shouldn’t have done and against the law, and possibly, after he got nominated and confirmed, an impeachable offense, even....

I thanks my lucky stars each and every day for Amy Goodman.

Gerald Ford R.I.P., I won't be missin' ya....

h/t to T.P.S.M. for some excellent links....