It’s all about stepping up

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 59 percent of the current U.S. population is younger than 40. That means that more than half of us have only a vague inkling at best what Gerald Ford was all about, or exactly why we won’t be getting mail until Wednesday.

As presidential funerals go, there won’t be the regal pomp and circumstance of Ronald Reagan’s send-off, nor the uncomfortable feeling that whatever tax money was spent on Richard Nixon’s final farewell was inappropriate. But, with all the various stops planned for Ford’s casket before it is interred in Michigan, a segment of the population – the over-40 crowd – is perhaps holding its collective breath lest the pallbearers stumble down a set of stairs. Go ask Chevy Chase.

I have a closely reasoned theory all about American foreign and domestic policy since the end of World War II, one that places responsibility for everything from the Kennedy assassinations to current gas prices squarely on the shoulders of Richard Nixon. Unfortunately, Bob Woodward is the one making money off it, with never-ending books and an ill-defined relationship with the Washington Post newsroom. He’s also introduced the public to a journalistic term-of-art: “embargoed” as an adjective, meaning you can have this information now if you just sit on it until I’m in the clear.

In my slightly lunatic-fringy theory, Gerald Ford makes unlikely yet key appearances: On the Warren Commission, appointed by Lyndon Johnson, which decided Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone; retaining the post of House minority leader for 25 years, with aspirations only to become Speaker, which eluded him as long as the Republicans couldn’t gain a majority; as Spiro Agnew’s replacement as vice president, which made Nixon’s 1974 resignation possible, and yes, as the guy who pardoned Nixon so he could spend the rest of his days in seclusion on San Clemency. Ford’s defeat of Ronald Reagan at the Republican Convention in 1976 – when a Republican in the White House was a no-hoper at best – set the stage for Republican domination of Congress that just ended in November. (See how it all starts to link up? Scary, huh?)

If Ford hadn’t taken one for the team to end the national nightmare that was Nixon’s presidency, maybe he would have become Speaker instead of Newt Gingrich, and we would have all been spared the Contract on America. But being a decent Midwestern sort, Ford was all about stepping up to do whatever was needed, even if it meant inheriting the worst economy since the Great Depression, presiding over the inevitable fall of Saigon, subjecting his family to the intense scrutiny of the highest office in the land, even enduring two assassination attempts by certified domestic lunatics and the end of a nearly 30-year career in politics.

He was finally recognized for the importance of his contributions, 25 years after the fact and by Democrats at that, with the Medal of Freedom (when it still meant something) and the Profiles in Courage award for pardoning Nixon.

But I don’t think that’s what Gerald Ford was all about. I watched him ski at a benefit event in Vail in the late 1980s, and he was giving his much younger Secret Service detail a workout trying to keep him surrounded through the slalom gates. No one stumbled, and everyone made it to the bottom of the hill in one piece.

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