What did Ford do as president?
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  What did Ford do as president?
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A18
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« on: October 31, 2004, 03:19:02 PM »

Also, what were his most conservative and liberal leanings?
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PBrunsel
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« Reply #1 on: October 31, 2004, 03:39:22 PM »

He described himself as a fiscal and economic Conservative. Conservative when it came to the millitary but modreate socially.
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A18
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« Reply #2 on: October 31, 2004, 03:56:05 PM »

What social issues was he moderate on? Smiley
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The Duke
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« Reply #3 on: October 31, 2004, 05:06:35 PM »

-Pardoned Nixon
-Dealt with the Pueblo incident
-Issued executive order banning assasinations
-Controlled infaltion well
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Dr. Cynic
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« Reply #4 on: October 31, 2004, 05:17:57 PM »

Anybody remember WIN?
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The Dowager Mod
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« Reply #5 on: October 31, 2004, 05:21:10 PM »

Whip Inflation Now!
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Dr. Cynic
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« Reply #6 on: October 31, 2004, 05:42:41 PM »

Ford later said it was about as gimmicky "As a Wrestling Event".
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Dr. Cynic
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« Reply #7 on: October 31, 2004, 06:18:56 PM »

God I miss 80's Wrestling!.....
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senorboogie woogie
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« Reply #8 on: November 01, 2004, 04:09:40 AM »


The Pueblo Incident happened in 1968, six years before Ford took office.
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willhsmit
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« Reply #9 on: November 01, 2004, 08:23:49 PM »


John Ford, you're thinking of the Mayaguez incident.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayaguez_Incident

Ford's list of accomplishments in 2 years is not very long -- he had a heavily Democratic Congress that he fought with for most of his term. Most of the things that were bipartisan enough to pass both Congress and Ford were related to the economy, which was in recession.
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J. J.
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« Reply #10 on: November 01, 2004, 10:36:00 PM »

What social issues was he moderate on? Smiley

I think he was pro-choice. 

Interstingly, Ford, after losing the election, came out in favor of statehood for Puerto Rico.

He appointed Nelson Rockefeller as VP; that act enraged the GOP right.

He also supported "detente" or "peace through strength" with the Soviets.
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The Duke
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« Reply #11 on: November 02, 2004, 02:59:31 AM »


The Pueblo Incident happened in 1968, six years before Ford took office.

John Ford, you're thinking of the Mayaguez incident.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayaguez_Incident

Ford's list of accomplishments in 2 years is not very long -- he had a heavily Democratic Congress that he fought with for most of his term. Most of the things that were bipartisan enough to pass both Congress and Ford were related to the economy, which was in recession.

Ah yes, you are right.
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #12 on: November 02, 2004, 07:44:05 AM »

Ford never was President. He was Secretary of Defence during the Lundgren and Kennedy administrations. .)
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J. J.
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« Reply #13 on: November 03, 2004, 06:42:35 PM »

He should have had Devo sing "Whip it!" in the background! That would have completed the WWF style BS!!

"Whip It" wasn't written yet.  It came up in 1979-81.
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YRABNNRM
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« Reply #14 on: November 03, 2004, 07:13:37 PM »

Ford never was President. He was Secretary of Defence during the Lundgren and Kennedy administrations. .)

hehe...
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dazzleman
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« Reply #15 on: November 04, 2004, 05:03:31 PM »

Ford's main accomplishment was to return a sense of civility and normality to the country after Watergate.  At the time, it was a huge accomplishment.

He was handed a terrible situation.  The economy was heading into deep recession, as a result of faulty economic policies by the Johnson and Nixon administration as well as a huge increase in the price of oil.  The South Vietnamese regime was tottering, and with it American foreign policy credibility.  Detente with the Soviets was faltering, but there was no backing for a stronger policy.  Then there was the terrible feeling engendered by Watergate, and the problem of how to handle Former President Nixon.

Ford pardoned Nixon and paid a huge price politically, but it effectively removed the Nixon issue, which was a huge help.  He picked a liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller as his VP, which enraged conservatives.  Conservatives were also enraged by comments made by Ford's wife, Betty, about social issues such as abortion (she is strongly pro-abortion).

Ford got us through the Vietnam calamity, and did a reasonably good job of restoring American credibility in the wake of it.  He maintained strained but working relations with the Soviets, got inflation under control, and presided over a modest economic expansion.

He was narrowly defeated by Jimmy Carter.  If the economy had been going a little better, he probably would have won.  But for the time, he had a very good presidency in my opinion, given what he had to work with.
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J. J.
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« Reply #16 on: November 05, 2004, 05:48:23 PM »

Some of Ford's personel decisions have shown to be exceptional, including chief of staff Dick Cheney and then Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.  He really attracted some talented administrators.
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Storebought
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« Reply #17 on: November 24, 2004, 06:00:00 PM »

Some of Ford's personel decisions have shown to be exceptional, including chief of staff Dick Cheney and then Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.  He really attracted some talented administrators.

Dick Cheney is Gerald Ford's greatest legacy to the US

Anyhow, Ford was a typical 1970s Republican squish. In spite of that, he deserves credit for maintaining his tepid Republicanism in the face of  the maniacal left-wing Congresses of the day, particularly after 1974.
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WilliamSeward
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« Reply #18 on: April 30, 2005, 06:51:21 PM »

Ford's main accomplishment was to return a sense of civility and normality to the country after Watergate.  At the time, it was a huge accomplishment.

He was handed a terrible situation.  The economy was heading into deep recession, as a result of faulty economic policies by the Johnson and Nixon administration as well as a huge increase in the price of oil.  The South Vietnamese regime was tottering, and with it American foreign policy credibility.  Detente with the Soviets was faltering, but there was no backing for a stronger policy.  Then there was the terrible feeling engendered by Watergate, and the problem of how to handle Former President Nixon.

Ford pardoned Nixon and paid a huge price politically, but it effectively removed the Nixon issue, which was a huge help.  He picked a liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller as his VP, which enraged conservatives.  Conservatives were also enraged by comments made by Ford's wife, Betty, about social issues such as abortion (she is strongly pro-abortion).

Ford got us through the Vietnam calamity, and did a reasonably good job of restoring American credibility in the wake of it.  He maintained strained but working relations with the Soviets, got inflation under control, and presided over a modest economic expansion.

He was narrowly defeated by Jimmy Carter.  If the economy had been going a little better, he probably would have won.  But for the time, he had a very good presidency in my opinion, given what he had to work with.

This sums up my view perfectly. Ford tried to unify the Republican party at a time when the party was splitting along different lines. Reagan already realized that the best policy for us was to stand up to the Soviets, but I think he truly thought this was the wrong path in his heart. The world was not yet ready for Reagan. In the meantime, Ford did pretty well for what he could do. Also, people in 1976 thought Reagan was more radical than he really was. They thought that he wanted to privatize Social Security and in 1980 he said he wanted to end the Department of Education. And this was back when Social Security was in better shape than it is now. Fortunately, Reagan turned out to be one of the best presidents ever, so I'm glad that Ford lost in 1976, or Reagan might not have been president. But Ford did do very well with what he knew and thought at the time.
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dazzleman
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« Reply #19 on: April 30, 2005, 07:10:22 PM »

Ford's main accomplishment was to return a sense of civility and normality to the country after Watergate.  At the time, it was a huge accomplishment.

He was handed a terrible situation.  The economy was heading into deep recession, as a result of faulty economic policies by the Johnson and Nixon administration as well as a huge increase in the price of oil.  The South Vietnamese regime was tottering, and with it American foreign policy credibility.  Detente with the Soviets was faltering, but there was no backing for a stronger policy.  Then there was the terrible feeling engendered by Watergate, and the problem of how to handle Former President Nixon.

Ford pardoned Nixon and paid a huge price politically, but it effectively removed the Nixon issue, which was a huge help.  He picked a liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller as his VP, which enraged conservatives.  Conservatives were also enraged by comments made by Ford's wife, Betty, about social issues such as abortion (she is strongly pro-abortion).

Ford got us through the Vietnam calamity, and did a reasonably good job of restoring American credibility in the wake of it.  He maintained strained but working relations with the Soviets, got inflation under control, and presided over a modest economic expansion.

He was narrowly defeated by Jimmy Carter.  If the economy had been going a little better, he probably would have won.  But for the time, he had a very good presidency in my opinion, given what he had to work with.

This sums up my view perfectly. Ford tried to unify the Republican party at a time when the party was splitting along different lines. Reagan already realized that the best policy for us was to stand up to the Soviets, but I think he truly thought this was the wrong path in his heart. The world was not yet ready for Reagan. In the meantime, Ford did pretty well for what he could do. Also, people in 1976 thought Reagan was more radical than he really was. They thought that he wanted to privatize Social Security and in 1980 he said he wanted to end the Department of Education. And this was back when Social Security was in better shape than it is now. Fortunately, Reagan turned out to be one of the best presidents ever, so I'm glad that Ford lost in 1976, or Reagan might not have been president. But Ford did do very well with what he knew and thought at the time.

It's great to get a reply to my comments about President Ford.

Ford has been one of the recent presidents I have most admired.  Many people know little about his presidency, and incorrectly think that he didn't really do anything as president.

The detente he advocated with the Soviets, and which he inherited from President Nixon, was not the ideal policy, but it was basically a response to temporary weakness on the part of the west.  It was basically a play for time, a gamble.  The nation and the rest of the west was not yet ready for the more confrontational policies advocated by conservatives like Ronald Reagan.

Ford's administration was a conservative one, despite the criticisms of him from the right.  He never backed down on supporting the South Vietnamese, and he advocated a policy of opposition to the budding Soviet-Cuban meddling in Africa.  But he was opposed by a very hostile liberal Congress, and he had no mandate from the people, having effectively been appointed by Nixon.

It is a tribute to the belief of the American people in our constitution that Ford's legitimacy as president was never questioned, and his administration never threatened, even after his pardon of Nixon, despite the fact that he was never elected, and there was a strong opposition Congress.  The American people accepted him as president, even when they didn't agree with his policies.

He nearly won election in his own right in 1976.  In hindsight, it was probably better for the party and the country that he didn't, because his defeat paved the way for Ronald Reagan.  Had Ford won the 1976 election, he and not Carter would have been blamed for the bad times of the late 1970s, which probably would have come whoever was in office, though Ford probably would have reacted better to them than Carter did, which is not saying much.  Still, the odds are that in this case, a liberal Democrat would have been elected in 1980, and this would have been an unmitigated disaster for the country, having to face the climax of the Cold War with a weak-on-defense liberal Democrat at the helm.

I think Ford went a little daffy in the years after he left office.  He seems to have a guilt complex about allowing his wife to drink so much and take so many pills for so many years, and I think his constant praise of her has been over the top.  It's nice when a man praises his wife, but it can be overdone.  He even said that she would have been elected president in 1976 had she, and not he, been the candidate.  I think that's a ridiculous statement considering that Betty Ford really never commented on substantive political matters, other than to advocate her brand of housewife feminism that was popular in the 1970s.  Ford in his later years has forged a friendship with Jimmy Carter, and on social issues moved to the left of where he was as president.  For example, he came out as favoring abortion, when as president he had a more ambiguous position.

It's funny how our system works.  During Ford's term, we needed a person as president who was very different from the type of person who could win a national election.  And fate arranged therefore that the man in office never had to win a national election.  Before his presidency, Ford had no ambitions for national office, and his lack of ambition, which would have killed him had he tried for the office in the usual way, ended up being a great asset that the country needed.  I think that history should look kindly on the presidency of Gerald Ford, and we should be grateful he was our president during a perilous time.  Things could have turned out a lot worse.
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MaC
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« Reply #20 on: April 30, 2005, 08:46:04 PM »

he finished the Vietnam war and brought back our troops, he pardoned Nixon, he tried whipping inflation (stagflation really).  He just wasn't really a strong or memorable character.  And, he was the only President from Michigan  :  )
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dazzleman
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« Reply #21 on: April 30, 2005, 09:49:40 PM »

he finished the Vietnam war and brought back our troops, he pardoned Nixon, he tried whipping inflation (stagflation really).  He just wasn't really a strong or memorable character.  And, he was the only President from Michigan  :  )

Our troops were already home before Ford became president.  Nixon had withdrawn US forces from Vietnam, but continued support for the South Vietnamese government to fight the communists on its own. 

Ford continued the policy with the limited means at his disposal, as Congress cut military aid to South Vietnam and Cambodia early in his term, and refused his requests for more aid. 

Congress had, in June 1973, already effectively forced the Nixon administration, weakened by Watergate, to accept an effective ban against renewing bombing of North Vietnam in the event of serious violations of the Paris Peace Accords.

In late 1974, a few months into Ford's term, the North Vietnamese launched an exploratory offensive, and took the entire Phuoc Long province, about 50 miles north of Saigon, in January 1975.  When the United States failed to react, and the south proved too weak to retake the province, the first time in the war this had happened, they decided to up the ante.

They attacked Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands in early March.  South Vietnamese President Thieu then made a fateful decision that led to his collapse.  He ordered a hastily and poorly conceived withdrawal of his military from the entire northern part of South Vietnam.  In theory, this was to conserve forces to defend the more important areas in the southern part of the country near Saigon and the Delta.

The roads the troops needed to use were largely impassible, and discipline broke down quickly.  The upshot is that the units never made it south to defend the more important areas, and the North Vietnamese gained unstoppable momentum.

In late March, they swept down the coast, taking Quang Tri, Hue (which had been retaken at great cost from the communists during the Tet Offensive) and then Da Nang, where American troops landed in 1965.  They continued their sweep until they had the whole country by late April.

Through all of this, the US was in the humiliating position of simply asking for more time to complete its evacuation.

Still, the loss of Vietnam was probably a blessing in disguise in the long run.  It had taken far more resources and attention than it was worth, and the whole thing just wasn't going to work out.  The way the US handled the Vietnam War was kind of like an internationalized version of the Great Society - the big powerful US governement would go in and fix the problems by doing for others what they should have been doing for themselves.  Neither worked out very well, and it fell to Ford to pick up the pieces.

Ford was not a particularly strong president, but he did deal with a lot of things that may have broken a lesser man.  He was what the country needed at the time.
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Cubby
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« Reply #22 on: May 02, 2005, 09:31:03 PM »

I'm a Democrat but I like Ford. He was the last pro-choice Republican president or (or candidate). He was the last moderate also, and I have always wished that he won in '76 because then we could have prevented Reagan from ever becoming president.

The GOP can talk all they want about how he "ended the cold war", the man deliberately stayed silent and let MILLIONS of people die from an epidemic then and now, and yet people revere him as some kind of quaint grandfather figure. 

Sorry I didn't mean for this to turn into a rant, its supposed to be about Ford. The guy was in office for so short a time that there is not much to base an opinion on.

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dazzleman
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« Reply #23 on: May 04, 2005, 07:50:09 PM »

I'm a Democrat but I like Ford. He was the last pro-choice Republican president or (or candidate). He was the last moderate also, and I have always wished that he won in '76 because then we could have prevented Reagan from ever becoming president.

The GOP can talk all they want about how he "ended the cold war", the man deliberately stayed silent and let MILLIONS of people die from an epidemic then and now, and yet people revere him as some kind of quaint grandfather figure. 

Sorry I didn't mean for this to turn into a rant, its supposed to be about Ford. The guy was in office for so short a time that there is not much to base an opinion on.



Ford wasn't pro-choice as president.  He opposed the Roe vs. Wade decision, and believed that the abortion issue should be left up to the states, but he was not an advocate of legalized abortion.  I don't think his position on abortion was much different from Carter's in 1976.  That was the last election before the two parties staked out their opposing positions on abortion.

Ford's wife Betty (while high on booze and pills) spoke out loudly in favor of abortion, but it was not Ford's official policy as president.  He later announced that he was in favor of abortion, and has generally become more liberal since he left the presidency than he was in office.
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