December 30, 2006
Hitchens on Ford
One expects a certain amount of piety and hypocrisy when retired statesmen give up the ghost, but this doesn't excuse the astonishing number of omissions and misstatements that have characterized the sickly national farewell to Gerald Ford. One could graze for hours on the great slopes of the massive obituaries and never guess that during his mercifully brief occupation of the White House, this president had:
1. Disgraced the United States in Iraq and inaugurated a long period of calamitous misjudgment of that country.
2. Colluded with the Indonesian dictatorship in a gross violation of international law that led to a near-genocide in East Timor.
3. Delivered a resounding snub to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn at the time when the Soviet dissident movement was in the greatest need of solidarity.
Instead, there was endless talk about "healing," and of the "courage" that it had taken for Ford to excuse his former boss from the consequences of his law-breaking. You may choose, if you wish, to parrot the line that Watergate was a "long national nightmare," but some of us found it rather exhilarating to see a criminal president successfully investigated and exposed and discredited. And we do not think it in the least bit nightmarish that the Constitution says that such a man is not above the law. Ford's ignominious pardon of this felonious thug meant, first, that only the lesser fry had to go to jail. It meant, second, that we still do not even know why the burglars were originally sent into the offices of the Democratic National Committee. In this respect, the famous pardon is not unlike the Warren Commission: another establishment exercise in damage control and pseudo-reassurance (of which Ford was also a member) that actually raised more questions than it answered. The fact is that serious trials and fearless investigations often are the cause of great division, and rightly so. But by the standards of "healing" celebrated this week, one could argue that O.J. Simpson should have been spared indictment lest the vexing questions of race be unleashed to trouble us again, or that the Tower Commission did us all a favor by trying to bury the implications of the Iran-Contra scandal. Fine, if you don't mind living in a banana republic.
Posted by Robin Varghese at 02:54 PM | Permalink
Comments
As usual, Christopher Hitchens makes us sit up and pay attention to the truth while others offer us palliatives and politeness.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Dec 31, 2006 2:17:35 PM
I was in Canada when President ("former",as we call them there, and also Prime Minister, you understand)
Gerald Ford (as we all call the man) died.
I was quite shocked by the glowing, feel good accolades that the otherwise anti -USA Canadian press gave to him.
Indeed, no mention of East Timor, nor Alexander Solzhinitsyn, nor even of Squeeky Fromm, with her misguided attack with a misguided pistol.
And indeed, while they did report (in Canada) that "Ex-President" Ford pardoned RMN, they never explored its ramifications.
It dismays me to see that my once much admired CBC is now sinking to CNN's level. One headline, badly covered, for hours on end. Until the next headline, in this case, Sadaam's execution, took over.
(of which coverage you already know, alas.)
But sometimes, the mass media can get it right, if only by accident:
Sunday Morning, December 31, on NPR, the announcer said:
...And Now President Bush is Laying in State.." which he quickly corrected: " er: Ford".
If there can be no other justice, their is always freudian justice.
Posted by: kb | Jan 1, 2007 9:39:09 PM
Ford's death and America’s nostalgic and generous re-evaluation of his presidency has more to do with our current ideological disarray and desperate desire for some clarifying center than with any real contribution by this bland ‘statesman’.
Once again - as in the rush to war following neocons, Bush, 9/11 and ‘thoughtful’ commentators like Hitchins - it is the baby boomer generation that has learned or retained little of its early insight and cynicism regarding ‘truth’ as self-obsessed will to power. They have let Ford be used recklessly to forgive their own complicity in our ignorant and arrogant foreign policy and handed Bust et al. the future as an explanation and apologist for their/our egregious present.
Hitchins might be wise in exploding this tainted past, but he has not been helpful in terms of shaping present discourse. Perhaps he should be attempting due diligence and some face-saving penance with a productive examination of our lame national ambivalence regarding the present gross violence and escalating quagmire in the middle east that has taught the imperialist impulse nothing but a little humility.
Posted by: Dante Del Giudice | Jan 3, 2007 9:54:14 AM
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