Is Gerald Ford going to die?

[dazzleman]

"There is no Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe and there never will be during a Ford administration." -- Gerald Rudolph Ford

Best presidential quote ever.

That's a real doozy.  I was in HS at the time and assigned to watch the debate.  Even then I knew enough to be flabberghasted by the comment.

He couldn't have meant it the way he said it.  You have to remember that Gerald Ford was severely disadvantaged in the way he came to office without going through a poltical campaign, and when he did campaign, he just wasn't up to the level of exposure that he got in the national media.

I think Jerry Ford was a good president for the time.  He did what he needed to do, which was to get us back to normal after Vietnam and Watergate.

[dazzleman]

"There is no Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe and there never will be during a Ford administration." -- Gerald Rudolph Ford

Best presidential quote ever.

That's a real doozy.  I was in HS at the time and assigned to watch the debate.  Even then I knew enough to be flabberghasted by the comment.

He couldn't have meant it the way he said it.  You have to remember that Gerald Ford was severely disadvantaged in the way he came to office without going through a poltical campaign, and when he did campaign, he just wasn't up to the level of exposure that he got in the national media.

I think Jerry Ford was a good president for the time.  He did what he needed to do, which was to get us back to normal after Vietnam and Watergate.

Yeah. But Carter didn't make a good impression in these debates either. Probably the worst ones so far, i.e. between two really incompetent-looking men. When the lights went off, for example, and they just stood there for 30 minutes or something, no one daring to move. Though one should perhaps remember that televised debates were something quite new at that time.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can now know who was in actuality more competent as president.  I think there's no doubt that Ford was a far better president than Carter.  It took Ford some time to grow into the job and get a first-class, rather than a minor league, team.  Carter, on the other hand, never grew into the job, and has proven through his most recent statements that he learned nothing from his many failures as president.