Posted by
Craig Freeborn on Friday, December 29, 2006 7:00:58 PM
Question: Who is next in line to the Presidency after the Vice President? As Freeborn Americans are remembering this week, the answer to this trick question is… the Vice-President.
Such was the case on August 9, 1974 when Vice-President Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as President after the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. Spiro Agnew was Nixon’s original Vice President, but resigned less than a year earlier just before he pleaded “no contest” to charges of tax evasion and money laundering. Nixon then nominated Ford under provisions of the then six-year-old 25th amendment.
After confirmation of both houses of Congress, Gerald Ford became not “Acting President”, not “Temporary President”, but President of the United States. Ford then nominated, and Congress confirmed, Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President, who would have ascended to the President had Ford vacated the office – which was a very real possibility considering the two assassination attempts against him.
With Ford’s death the day after Christmas, the media has gone “gaga” as they trip over themselves heaping praises upon his memory. They sang a far different tune, however, during his administration.
When President Ford issued a “full, free, and absolute pardon” just 30 days after Nixon’s resignation, far from “healing the nation” – as is now the PC line – Ford himself faced possible impeachment.
I had fully expected the pardon, and was surprised it wasn’t issued sooner – but, it seemed to me at the time, I was the only one in the country who did. Democrats forced Congressional hearings. Ford was called to testify in defense of his actions (which he did – declaring that he had made no private agreement to grant a pardon in exchange for Nixon stepping down). The media vilified him. There were protests in front of the Whitehouse. It was hardly the healing balm the media is now claiming some 32 years later.
His pulling out of all American troops from Vietnam won no kudos for healing from many Americans who can still see visions of desperate civilians hanging on to helicopters during the evacuation of South Saigon. Never mind that, in the face of a full-scale invasion by the North, Ford had asked Congress for – and was denied – assistance for South Vietnam.
Accusations flew in the wake of the fall of South Vietnam and Cambodia; the execution of tens of thousands; the desperate attempt by perhaps a hundred thousand more to flee by boat.
The backlash of Ford’s Presidency – and all of the above – led to the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976.
No, it wasn’t a time of healing.