January 13, 2007
BETTER TO KEEP QUIET AND BE THOUGHT AN IDIOT THAN SPEAK AND PROVE IT (via Bryan Francoeur):
Ford's assessment of fellow presidents released (AP, 1/12/07)
In 25 years of interviews with his hometown paper that could only be released upon his death, former President Ford once called Jimmy Carter a "disaster" who ranked alongside Warren Harding, and said Ronald Reagan received far too much credit for ending the Cold War."It makes me very irritated when Reagan's people pound their chests and say that because we had this big military buildup, the Kremlin collapsed," Ford told The Grand Rapids Press.
Ford contended his own negotiation of the Helsinki accords on human rights did more to win the Cold War than Reagan's military buildup.
The best president of his lifetime, Ford said, was a more moderate Republican: Dwight D. Eisenhower. [...]
In 1981, Ford said: "I think Jimmy Carter would be very close to Warren G. Harding. I feel very strongly that Jimmy Carter was a disaster, particularly domestically and economically. I have said more than once that he was certainly the poorest president in my lifetime."
But two years later, he praised Carter's performance on the Panama Canal treaty, China and the Middle East. And in 1998, he said Carter "will be looked on as a better president than some comments we hear today."
"He was a very decent, fine individual," Ford told the paper. "There were no major mistakes. There just weren't a lot of exciting results."
Of course, Ford didn't even understand the Helsinki accords at the time, as he demonstrated by being so accomodationist with the Soviets and refusing to meet with Solzhenitsyn.
There were only two significant issues at the end of the Depression/WWII: dismantling the Welfare State and doing away with the USSR. Ford, his predecessors, and his immediate successor showed no interest in taking on either fight and so are at best mediocrities -- Eisenhower -- at worst failures -- Truman, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford Carter.
It's significant that the only worthwhile action of the Carter presidency -- beginning the covert war in Afghanistan -- eluded Ford's notice.
Posted by Orrin Judd at January 13, 2007 11:31 AMAny of Warren Harding's failings or the corruption among his subordinates may have damaged his reputation, but not the country as a whole. Carter, on the other hand, was an unmitigated catastrophe for the United States, a record he seems to want to continue in his public statements.
Posted by: Greg Hlatky at January 13, 2007 12:11 PMCarter did get Israel and Egypt to make peace. I think that should count as a worthwhie action.
Posted by: Brandon at January 13, 2007 1:28 PMCarter was incidental. Once Sadat sued for peace the rest was easy.
Posted by: oj at January 13, 2007 1:37 PMDidn't Helsinki also contain a bunch of realist guff about the inviolability of borders even for tyrannical governments, which the Soviets cherished because it allowed them to hold onto Eastern Europe and their own captive peoples? And didn't the Soviets repeatedly violate the conditions anyway? And why did Gerald Ford, who snubbed Solzhenitsyn and said Romania was not under Soviet control, think this piece of paper was a great inspiration to people behind the Iron Curtain but Ronald Reagan's outwardly pro-liberty speeches and policies were not?
Just asking.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at January 13, 2007 2:24 PMNot taking on Iran in 79 was a colossal mistake.
If Ford couldn't see that these last 30 years.....
Posted by: Sandy P at January 13, 2007 2:25 PMI thought that I read once that Israel and Egypt had already made the peace. They just held off on making it official so they could go to the Carter Administration for public recognition and of course American tax dollars.
Posted by: andrew at January 13, 2007 6:06 PMThe coup was the big mistake in Iran.
Posted by: oj at January 13, 2007 8:16 PMTrackBack
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