Michael Currie Schaffer: How Gerald Ford shaped the Bush administration
There is a passage, toward the end of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's The Final Days, where a group of aides to Gerald Ford present the vice president with a set of suggestions for his transition. As Richard Nixon floundered, the group had conducted its business in secret, lest Ford appear to be campaigning for the president's ouster. But now, with a resignation all but certain, they offer their plans to the man who is about to become the leader of the free world. On a limousine ride from his Virginia home to the White House, Ford considers their list of candidates to lead the transition. The aides suggest Frank Carlucci, then undersecretary of health, education, and welfare. Their alternates include Deputy Defense Secretary William Clements and NATO Ambassador Donald Rumsfeld. In the blank space on the page, Ford writes in Rumsfeld's name.
Considering that it comes just one page after a despondent Nixon signs his letter of resignation, the vignette hardly plays like a moment of grand historical significance. Three decades on, though, it lands like the final scene from the Star Wars prequel, where the mask descends onto the face of the man who has become Darth Vader, thereby sealing the history of the future. What if Ford's pen had scrawled out a different name as the car crossed the Potomac? No transition-chief Rumsfeld means no Chief of Staff Rumsfeld. Which means no chance to tap an unknown Dick Cheney as his deputy, no chance for the men to form their lasting bond, no chance for Cheney to take over upon Rumsfeld's departure. And on and on down the road to Baghdad: No Chief of Staff Cheney means no Representative Cheney, which means no Defense Secretary Cheney, no vice-presidential selection team leader Cheney, and no Vice President
Cheney to bring his old mentor back to Washington a couple of decades later.
The counterfactual possibilities are endless: For all we know, a Carlucci-run Ford White House might have promoted a different young acolyte who, 28 years later, would develop a jones for launching a woefully understaffed invasion of, say, Bolivia. Stranger things have happened.
In fact, the connection between Ford and the unpleasantness of the last few years makes a surprising coda to the posthumous history of his administration. Back in the heady days of early 2001, the thirty-eighth president's influence on the incoming forty-third chief executive was supposed to indicate something quite different. As Ford's old aides took up key positions in George W. Bush's White House, pundits assumed it heralded a return to the low-key, non-ideological style of Ford's administration. "While the Ford revival may be largely accidental, I think there are some other telling affinities," wrote Jacob Weisberg in Slate. "Like both Bushes, Ford was a pragmatic politician. He was a mainstream Republican, picked as vice president because of a demonstrated ability to negotiate compromise."
As it turned out, the idea that the old Ford hands would bring Grand Rapids-style comity to the new administration didn't exactly work out. Which isn't to say the Bush administration wasn't shaped by the Ford experience. Quite the contrary: A glance back at the last six years suggests that, rather than trying to emulate the stolid style of their first White House spin, Cheney and company returned to town determined not to repeat the era's mistakes. Upending the post-Watergate openness that defines large chunks of Ford's legacy, the new veep moved to shield political insiders from news-media buttinskies, good-government know-it-alls, and Capitol Hill meddlers--effectively rebuilding the Imperial Presidency that his first White House boss had helped undo. Instead of smoking a pipe with his legislative-branch colleagues, as Ford might have, Cheney told them to go fuck themselves. So much for compromise....
Read entire article at New Republic
Considering that it comes just one page after a despondent Nixon signs his letter of resignation, the vignette hardly plays like a moment of grand historical significance. Three decades on, though, it lands like the final scene from the Star Wars prequel, where the mask descends onto the face of the man who has become Darth Vader, thereby sealing the history of the future. What if Ford's pen had scrawled out a different name as the car crossed the Potomac? No transition-chief Rumsfeld means no Chief of Staff Rumsfeld. Which means no chance to tap an unknown Dick Cheney as his deputy, no chance for the men to form their lasting bond, no chance for Cheney to take over upon Rumsfeld's departure. And on and on down the road to Baghdad: No Chief of Staff Cheney means no Representative Cheney, which means no Defense Secretary Cheney, no vice-presidential selection team leader Cheney, and no Vice President
Cheney to bring his old mentor back to Washington a couple of decades later.
The counterfactual possibilities are endless: For all we know, a Carlucci-run Ford White House might have promoted a different young acolyte who, 28 years later, would develop a jones for launching a woefully understaffed invasion of, say, Bolivia. Stranger things have happened.
In fact, the connection between Ford and the unpleasantness of the last few years makes a surprising coda to the posthumous history of his administration. Back in the heady days of early 2001, the thirty-eighth president's influence on the incoming forty-third chief executive was supposed to indicate something quite different. As Ford's old aides took up key positions in George W. Bush's White House, pundits assumed it heralded a return to the low-key, non-ideological style of Ford's administration. "While the Ford revival may be largely accidental, I think there are some other telling affinities," wrote Jacob Weisberg in Slate. "Like both Bushes, Ford was a pragmatic politician. He was a mainstream Republican, picked as vice president because of a demonstrated ability to negotiate compromise."
As it turned out, the idea that the old Ford hands would bring Grand Rapids-style comity to the new administration didn't exactly work out. Which isn't to say the Bush administration wasn't shaped by the Ford experience. Quite the contrary: A glance back at the last six years suggests that, rather than trying to emulate the stolid style of their first White House spin, Cheney and company returned to town determined not to repeat the era's mistakes. Upending the post-Watergate openness that defines large chunks of Ford's legacy, the new veep moved to shield political insiders from news-media buttinskies, good-government know-it-alls, and Capitol Hill meddlers--effectively rebuilding the Imperial Presidency that his first White House boss had helped undo. Instead of smoking a pipe with his legislative-branch colleagues, as Ford might have, Cheney told them to go fuck themselves. So much for compromise....