Comment #44083 by rls on 12/28 at 3:58 am says:

“The statement about Ford being “the only one to hold the office without being elected” is not true.  The current Bush was not elected in 2000.  I would say Bush was appointed since he lost the election by a substantial margin of votes but became president anyway.  (And there are other examples in American history.)”

“Elected” in these united states has always meant;
recieved the greatest number of Electorial College votes. When one uses that standard Ford is the only “unelected” president in US history.

BUT the same people who say “Ford was the only unelected president” also routinely refer to the U.S. as a “democracy”.

One of these designations is incorrect.  I believe the second, because Ben Franklin said the US was a republic.  It has become a “representative” republic. the distinction being that in a true democracy each vote would be of equal value. Today in these united states, a vote in Wyoming is worth 32 times a New York vote.

“Who’d’ve thought people would be rear-viewing those times now as “the good ol’ days”?  Must be that wrong-side-of-the-mirror syndrome kicking-in again.”

Tao,
The current occupant in the White House is such a disaster, that the public desires “something” to fondly reminisce over—-even if it’s Ford’s mediocre presidency.

Other than pardoning Nixon, wasn’t Ford infamous for his slapstick routine—-stumbling out of planes; injuring himself with his golf clubs—-oh, I forgot he was also known for his campaign against inflation “WIN” (whip inflation now) those pins might actually be worth something—a real collectors item.

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75jford.phtml

Responding to Comment #43973 by Jeff Smith.

The assassination was the turning point of our
republic. To believe that a bungler the likes of
Lee Harvey Oswald could evade the secret service
and carry out such an operation is tantamount to
believing in Santa Claus.

If the commission found nothing extraordinary
we should have known ALL immediately. The probable
truth is that a few members of the commission
were linked to the plan and would have been held
accountable if the truth escaped.

You might ask why then not simply lie? The answer
to that is at least a few members of the commission
were not completely faithless and feared for their
immortal souls and so the findings would be held
until all were gone from this realm. The thinking
was that history would prove that the actions
carried out were for the betterment of the nation.

Atheism is not a bad thing per-se. But when theology
or atheology, in position of power, turns against
the popular opinion and rules by decree we live
under fascism. Today we have leadership that is
in truth atheistic but wears the cloak of theism.
Thus we have decisions made under the pretense of
“god came to me and said this”, where in truth the
“NWO agenda came to me and said this”. This agenda
was spawned long before we heard of NWO. You’ll
notice another poster mentioned the Rockefeller tri-lateralists.

My continued concern with the Warren Commision is
due to the fact that despite any human failings
of JFK (leaked to us after his death by the same
cabal who did away with him), November 22, 1963
was the point of no return for our nation. We had
no clue at the time, we simply believed “Uncle Walter”
without knowing he was a Bohemian Grove insider.

Jeff, my point regarding their immediate families
was not that I was concerned with them. The commission
members were obviously concerned for them with the
fall-out from their findings. Thus you have this
huge delay, 75 years in releasing the information
that belongs to the American people (and the world).

Why do I need to “get over the Warren Commission Report”?

The statement about Ford being “the only one to hold the office without being elected” is not true.  The current Bush was not elected in 2000.  I would say Bush was appointed since he lost the election by a substantial margin of votes but became president anyway.  (And there are other examples in American history.)

It’s interesting how the factoid of Ford being “the only president neither elected to that office nor to the VP office” is being widely promulgated, despite the fact that Dubya was installed in 2000 by a Supreme Court that, in effect, cancelled the presidential election before it could be concluded.

Furthermore, since today’s electronic voting machines are unverifiable and notoriously vulnerable to tampering, and since Dubya’s party has a verifiable record of electoral dirty tricks on his behalf, it’s more than arguable that he was not elected to his second term, either.

Jerry Ford was involved in the cover-up whitewash “The Warren Commission Report”.  He tampered with the autopsy report to preclude more than one shooter.  Kennedy was ambushed and Ford did his part to see the guilty go free.  You can find this on Google. “Ford admits changing autopsy report” Yahoo got rid of the comments on articles.  Mr. Neil Budde who came over from the war street journal is the one to give the fatal order.  He thinks the public should read the truth in their colums and no need to comment.  Didn’t Yahoo just buy google??  How do you make searches politically correct??  Inquiring minds at the war street urnal want to know.

Ford pardoned Nixon with pre-arrangement through A. Haig.

Don’t forget to welcome next Woodward’s book which might content the secrecy behind the door when Ford granted full pardon to Nixon.

C.Berstein had said “The son of the bitch pardons the son of the bitch”.

No more comment !

I remember the pardon when I was a teenager.  I was upset along with a lot of my peers and many adults.  But now I think he did the right thing.  Just look what happened when the republicans tried to impeach Clinton.  The Nixon watergate promblem is nothing compared to what this republican administration is doing to the american people now.  Clinton lied about sex but no one died.  We now know Bushed lied and almost 3,000 soldiers have died. If I fault anything on President Ford he bought the idots to his cabinet and now they are serving with Bush. Thank President Ford.  But you were an honest man unlike this administration.

No wonder the U.S. constitution is in shreds.  Here we have “the newspaper of record” blithely claiming Nixon “appointed” Ford to replace Agnew as vice-president.  Article 2 of the 25th amendment has the president “nominate” a vice-presidential replacement, who must then be confirmed by a majority of both houses of the Congress.

In the event, it meant Nixon had to pick someone acceptable to the Democrats who controlled both chambers at the time.  Gerald Ford was House minority leader, a known quantity who wouldn’t rock any boats, and who agreed up-front he would be only a “caretaker” president.  It was widely understood a “pardon” for Nixon, should it come to that as already seemed likely, was part of the deal.  Supposedly this was to prevent the “constitutional crisis” Nixon threatened to foment otherwise.

It was Ford’s decision to try to up-grade his “place-keeper” role that was his political undoing, as he was not thought fit, by those who think such things, to be president in his own right.  Carter was smarter, which suited the Rockefeller tri-lateralists’ (of which Georgia Jimmy was one) global ambitions a lot better than ‘down-home’ Jerry’s college sports credentials, and his weekly ‘comedy hours’ with Senate counterpart, Illinois’ Everett Dirksen.

Who’d’ve thought people would be rear-viewing those times now as “the good ol’ days”?  Must be that wrong-side-of-the-mirror syndrome kicking-in again.

No one even wants to thank him for John Paul Stevens?

By contrast to our current dictator… he looks good.

RE: Comment #43887 by Pitiless Rememberer on 12/27 at 5:43 am — “No one, not even a President, can legally “pardon” someone who hasn’t been first convicted of a crime. The Ford pardon of Nixon was therefore totally illegal.”

>>>>>> curiously, in all these years this is the first time I’ve ever seen that outside of my own opinion - certainly I knew mine wasn’t unique, but that it took so long to encounter it - now if only it could somehow make it to the MSM along with the sell-out of the victims of East Timor for which Ford and Kissinger both should have gone to prison.

It’s not too late. One of them still could do, and indeed should. Isn’t there still a warrant out in France, you know, where they gave him that little Swedish award, thereby diminishing forever its stature? I swear nobody but nobody deserves so much luck: two of his most notorious witnesses die within weeks of one another.

Same as every president before and after him, Gerald Ford served the interests of the powers that be.  And so it’ll remain until we truly have a government that’s of, for and by the people.  When will that be?  It’s up to us.

ptracy_4 at yahoo dot com

Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger have much blood on their hands for green lighting Indonesia’s illegal takeover of East Timor.

We need him to pardon GWB ! Ha, ha, ha !

I was going to respond but everything I would have said has been said already. I never forgave him for his complicity with the power in DC. If you are looking for the point where America began is’s slide to oblivion, look no further than Nixon but above all, Gerald Ford. Corporations and power mongers will lament his passing, not I.

I am responding to 43934 (Hemi) and 43922 (Richard Smith - no relation).  Hemi needs to get over the Warren Commission Report.  It’s obvious that he/she hasn’t left the past behind because of the desire to hold Ford’s immediate family accountable for the Warren Commission Report. 

How is it that Richard Smith thinks Ford did “enormous damage to our system of justice?” By pardoning Nixon?  How has this “enormous damage” become “clearly evident?”

History turned to new page !

Thanks to him the U.S. escaped safely from Indochina but the sea of tears inundated Vietnam, Cambodge and Laos !

I only wish that we all could retire as comfortably as Gerald Ford at Rancho Mirage California; all at the tax payers’ expense.

Thanks for the Warren Commission Gerry!
The truth shall set you free… in another
thirty years. Long after we can hold you
and your immediate family accountable for
the cover-up.

You were the last, good ridance!

“Portait of the Assassin”, what a fitting title.
You helped kill the American dream.

He did very few positve things , but did enormous damage to our system of justice, as is now clearly evident.

No one, not even a President, can legally “pardon” someone who hasn’t been first convicted of a crime.

The Ford pardon of Nixon was therefore totally illegal. As inventor of the preemptive pardon-by-fiat, Ford did not “heal” the wounds caused by Nixon’s imperial presidency - he deepened the damage, by arrogating to himself a new imperial power.

And Bush can really use this power to good advantage. If legal proceedings against any of his cronies threaten to reveal too much, Bush can always “pardon” them all, before anything gets aired in court.

Ford was a lousy partisan hack.