The Legacy Of Gerald Ford

President Gerald Ford was an ordinary guy who did a remarkable job in extraordinary times.
After replacing a disgraced vice president, he stepped in for a disgraced president and led a disheartened nation through trying times.

The jovial, plain-talking Ford immediately soared in popularity, but he cashed in his political capital to pardon Richard Nixon. Time proved his decision right as well as courageous, but it angered liberals and moderates and probably cost him the close 1976 election against Democrat Jimmy Carter.

Now he is mostly remembered as the never-elected, awkward president. The bumbling caricature is unfair. Ford was probably our most athletic president, having played center on a University of Michigan football team that won two national championships.

A Navy veteran, he angered conservatives when he granted conditional amnesty to Vietnam draft evaders and deserters. As a member of Congress, he had angered liberals by criticizing Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programs as wasteful, but some 30 years later, bipartisan welfare reform confirmed his fears about overly generous handouts.

Throughout his career, his wife, Betty, was a source of moral strength, even when her high-profile advocacy of women's rights was a political liability.

Soon after they left the White House, she was treated for alcohol and pill dependency at a Navy hospital. Recognizing how hard it was to find treatment, she later founded the Betty Ford Center, which has helped thousands of people overcome addiction and helped make her among the most fondly remembered of presidential spouses.

Her husband spent most of his long post-presidency contentedly in the background, lecturing, enjoying his family, answering mail and raising money for charity. He led bravely, upheld his principles and then humbly returned to private life.

President Clinton recognized Ford's contribution in a 1999 ceremony: "President Ford represents what is best in public service and what is best about America."