As you read through the coverage of Gerald Ford's death, wondering why you should really give a rat's ass about this guy, an unelected president who will at best be considered a caretaker, who employed The Sith Lord Cheney as his Chief Of Staff, who, for God's sake, pardoned Nixon, you won't find much.
True, there were two attempts on his life, from former Manson devotee Squeaky Fromme and frumpy FBI fink Sara Jane Moore. Both were portrayed in Stephen Sondheim's great musical play Assassins, so I guess we have Ford to thank for that.
And of course, while justifying his pardon of Nixon, Ford famously used the phrase "Our long national nightmare is over," which can be conveniently deployed as ironic comment on all matter of pop culture detritus, as in "Our long national nightmare is over--Britney and K-Fed finally broke up." So there's that, too.
Otherwise, the main thing to know about Ford's presidency is that, despite his supposed status as a "regular guy" (an aspect being hammered home by most of the coverage this morning), his white house was a haven for far-right lunatics like Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Al Haig. His loss to Jimmy Carter in '76 was as much as anything the cause of the Republican persecution complex, and his staff would, of course, return to power, minus Ford's stabilizing hand.
So no tears for Jerry Ford. He may be gone, but with every death in Iraq, you might say his legacy lives on.
