Aug 15, 2009
A Presidential Favorite
David Beito likes Warren G. Harding. One of my favorite presidents was Gerald Ford.
Ford’s approach to inflation was WIN (“Whip Inflation Now”) buttons, which were silly, perhaps, but much better than the wage-and-price controls of his predecessor. I am told that he vetoed more bills than any other president since Dwight D. Eisenhower--many of them big spending bills pushed by the Democratic majority in Congress. And although he was a congressman for 25 years, he never wrote a major bill.
Ford pardoned Nixon, which lost him re-election but ended what could have been a long, bitter, and divisive perpetuation of the “hate-Nixon” mood. When Ford died, even Ted Kennedy and the New York Times agreed that his pardon was the right decision.
I was always sorry that he hadn’t coupled the pardon with amnesty for Vietnam objectors. It would have helped to ease the pain caused by the previous decade and it might have won him re-election.
Ford’s approach to inflation was WIN (“Whip Inflation Now”) buttons, which were silly, perhaps, but much better than the wage-and-price controls of his predecessor. I am told that he vetoed more bills than any other president since Dwight D. Eisenhower--many of them big spending bills pushed by the Democratic majority in Congress. And although he was a congressman for 25 years, he never wrote a major bill.
Ford pardoned Nixon, which lost him re-election but ended what could have been a long, bitter, and divisive perpetuation of the “hate-Nixon” mood. When Ford died, even Ted Kennedy and the New York Times agreed that his pardon was the right decision.
I was always sorry that he hadn’t coupled the pardon with amnesty for Vietnam objectors. It would have helped to ease the pain caused by the previous decade and it might have won him re-election.