Up until he was nominated to pardon Nixon, Gerald Ford was a straight-up, honorable man. He rode in a convertible in a parade in my hometown, and only cowardice kept me from shaking his hand and saying, “You, sir, are a great man.” That was before all that nastiness happened.
“nominated to pardon Nixon” ?? Would you kindly explain WTF you’re talking about?
I think it was more important for the nation to get the whole Watergate scandal behind it than it was to prosecute Nixon. Although never prosecuted, he was driven from office in disgrace and following presidents are well aware that the same could happen to them.
I don’t think it was just Nixon what the pardon protected.
I will do the educated guess that the careers of people like Kissinger and Rumsfeld would had suffered an irreparable blow had the investigation had continued. (collateral damage) Seeing that these guys managed to then later advise Bush jr on the war in Iraq, what Ford did whitewashed others and that allowed them to continue the sorry Nixon Legacy.
He was the only president I met personally. Granted, I was ten years olf at the time, but still, it left a lasting impression on me. Always had a lot of respect for him.
I don’t believe this to be so. Here is the text of the pardon. I don’t see anyone other than Nixon being protected.
I wonder if the NY Daily News headline this morning will read
LIFE TO FORD: DROP DEAD!
It’s Gerry, not Jerry (I have an uncle named Gerald).
Forgive my ignorance (remember, I’m from north of the border 
), but can someone explain that? How did he become president without ever being elected president or VP?
VPs aren’t elected. When we vote, the ballot has a choice of candidates for President. The VP is the person chosen by the candidate to be VP should the candidate win. Ford was VP by virtue of being chosen by Nixon. When Nixon resigned, he became President.
Nixon’s VP, Spiro Agnew, resigned under cloud of a tax scandal. Our Constitution provides that in the case of a vacancy in the office of VP, the President nominates a VP who must be confirmed by the Senate. Nixon nominated Ford and the Senate confirmed bim.
Shortly thereafter, Nixon resigned because of Watergate. Our Constitution provides that should the office of the President become vacant, the Vice-President shall become President. Ford was sworn in.
Please see my post immediately following yours for the actual answer.
To be perfectly pedantic, we don’t vote for President in this country. We vote for a slate of electors to the Electoral College, who meet after the general election and elect the President. There is no requirement in the federal Constitution that the electors vote for the candidate who won their state, nor is the elector required to vote for the vice-presidential candidate who ran with the elector’s candidate for president. An elector (unless bound by state law, which some but not most are) may vote for any constitutionally eligible person for President and Vice-President, and indeed may even vote for the same person for both offices. Such “faithless electors” are exceedingly rare but they have happened. IIRC one such faithless elector voted for John Edwards for President in 2004.
Ford was the last surviving member of the warren commission-and with his passing, we can now expect the true story of the kennedy Assassination to be told! Of course, just about everybody is dead so…
I did see a pic on the toob with him standing next to a large crudely painted sign reading JERRY FORD.
Amendment 12, dealing with the election of the Pres and VP:
Relevant sections of Amendment 25 covering vacancies in the offices of Pres and VP. Note that I misstated slightly, both Houses of Congress must approve the VP-designate, not just the Senate:
Oops. I actually did know that you guys don’t vote for a VP :smack: - it slipped my mind when I read the original message; my fuzzy brain this early in the morning was getting confused over the fact that you vote for President (indirectly via the Electoral College, I know) and the VP comes along for the ride.
I will always remember his “Whip Inflation Now!” buttons.
Is that what they do on the West Coast?
In the rest of the U.S., candidates for President and Vice-President run against each other as a team for election to the respective offices. There’s a gentleman’s custom in each party that the man who wins the intraparty race to become that party’s nominee for President has the right to choose his running mate, but nothing binding anyone to that either in statute, regulation, or even party bylaws AFAIK. But every Vice-President except Ford and Nelson Rockefeller was elected to that office by electors chosen by the voters at a quadrennial general election.
How Ford (and Rocky) differ from the rest is that, under the 25th Amendment, whenever there is a vacancy in the office of Vice President (whether by death or resignation of the VP, or by the VP succeeding as President after the incumbent President’s death or resignation), the sitting President nominates a candidate for Vice President to serve out the current term. He is confirmed in that job by a majority vote of both House and Senate.
The 25th had recently been adopted when VP Spiro T. Agnew was forced to resign over extortion, bribery, and income tax fraud committed while he was Governor of Maryland. President Nixon, already embattled over the Watergate Affair, nominated Ford to serve as VP. Shortly thereafter, Nixon himself resigned rather than face impeachment and trial over Watergate. Ford then succeeded him as our only unelected President, and nominated Nelson Rockefeller, former Governor of New York and his own political opposite within the Republican Party, as the new VP. The two of them, both now deceased, remain our only unelected VPs.
It’s also “Jerry” on the golf tournament that was named after him.
Paul Harvey did a “Rest of the Story” about Ford as a teenager. He went in with an older guy to a ( either store or restaurant - IIRC) after hours to jack the safe. Midway through the adventure, Ford decided this wasn’t for him and wanted to back out, but the other guy pulled a knife, so Ford had to beat him up and get out of there. The kind of stuff my brothers and I got mixed up in before we cleaned up our acts, so I always liked Ford for that.