Speaking Ill of the Dead: Part I
Well, the feds got a holiday today, but I didn't. I just got a long frustrating day at work. My guess is all those bureaucrats and functionaries didn't stay glued to CNN covering the funeral of Gerald R. Ford, either.
For the record, the late president almost cost me my first job out of college.
It was 1976, I was finishing up my junior year at Michigan State University, and Ford was running for re-election -- well, technically his first election -- as president. I knew that I needed some practical experience as a professional journalist in order to make a career in the field, so I was scrambling to land some sort of summer internship.
After a great deal of work and worry, about three weeks prior to the end of the spring quarter, I landed an interview with The Lapeer County Press, a big weekly newspaper in Lapeer, MI, about 70 miles northeast of East Lansing. I had a 9 a.m. appointment on a weekday, and I knew that the trip would take between an hour and 15 minutes and an hour and a half. So I got up plenty early, about 6 a.m., and headed for my car. As a student living in a dormitory, my parking options were limited to a remote lot far to the south of the main MSU campus, across the old Grand Trunk Railroad line that cut across the southern part of campus.
What I didn't know (or maybe just didn't pay attention to) was that day was the same day that the Ford campaign chose to charter a train and put their candidate on a whistle stop tour across the State of Michigan. Ford boarded the train early in the morning in Port Huron, at the eastern edge of the state, and rode it all the way west along the Grand Trunk line, with a few speechifying stops along the way, ending up that night in Chicago. Yes, that same Grand Trunk line separating the campus from my car.
My intention was to leave the parking lot, drive east over to Hagadorn Road, and then north along the east edge of East Lansing to connect up with I-69 and head out to Lapeer. I followed this plan until I turned onto Hagadorn Road and into a huge traffic jam. I was a few hundred yards from the railroad crossing, and I could see there wasn't any train blocking it. I wondered whether or not there had been an accident, so I turned on my car radio to a station that had frequent news broadcasts.
No, there hadn't been any accident. There was a whistle stop tour. In honor of the president, and just in case someone might wish him ill, the Secret Service had gone across the state and blocked off every single goddamn railroad crossing along the Grand Trunk and was set to keep them blocked until the president's train had passed. I was stuck in a huge mass of cars, with no way to turn around.
So I waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. About 2-1/2 hours later, the president's train passed by, a three car Amtrak affair. I may have caught a glimpse of Ford -- there looked like a couple of dudes in suits on the back end of the last car. Or it may just have been more Secret Service agents. I was too far away to tell.
After the train passed and they finally reopened the railroad crossing, I drove as fast as I could get away with up to Lapeer. There weren't any cell phones in those days, except for extremely rich people, and I didn't have enough money on me to pay for a toll call. But I did get to my job interview, two hours late.
About a week later, Editor Lloyd Stoyer called me up to offer me the position. Later, he told me that I'd lost a lot of points with him by showing up so late with such a lame excuse as being detained by the Secret Service, so frankly, I was the second choice for the internship. I only got the job because I had a car and the first choice didn't.
That was my first personal experience with the extreme disruption that is caused whenever The President Of These United States condescends to go out and grace the Little People with His Presence. I remember hearing back in the 1990s about how President Clinton and his family decided to take a winter vacation out in Jackson Hole, WY. Naturally, the Secret Service forced the resort owner to cancel every other reservation in the hotel for that time period, some of which were paid in advance and for which no compensation was offered. No compensation was offered to the hotel owner, either.
But at least he got a photo with the president that he could mount on the wall. Which was more than the owners of all the adjacent hotels got, because the Secret Service ordered all of those hotels emptied, as well.
And people wonder why I'm an anarchist.
Needless to say, Gerald R. Ford did not get my vote in November 1976 (as usual, I voted Libertarian). I won't pretend that my single vote turned the election, although Ford did lose to Jimmy Carter.
In fact, the main reason Ford lost, according to the history books, had nothing to do with any whistle stop tours in Michigan or anywhere else. It had everything to do with the presidential pardon he gave to Richard Nixon for his predecessor's crimes against humanity, one month after Nixon resigned from office.
Now I happen to believe that Ford was an honest and honorable man, at least for a U.S. president, relatively speaking. I believe he had the very best of intentions when he pardoned Nixon -- to heal the country after the turmoil surrounding the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, and because he feared the country would be ungovernable if he did otherwise. (Personally, I prefer my country ungovernable.) I even kinda sorta believe that there was no deal made for him to pardon Nixon when Nixon appointed Ford vice president, at least not in so many spoken words.
But I also believe Ford was absolutely dead wrong to pardon Nixon.
The reason it was dead wrong was that it set a horrible precedent. Nixon got away with horrible crimes against humanity -- the monstrous Christmas bombing of Hanoi, for example, and his attempt to destroy the Constitution. Instead, he went on to collect his massive government pension and make thousands and thousands more on the speaker circuit. Eventually, he had a stroke and died peacefully in his sleep.
And every president who came after Nixon knew he had an out, no matter what he did. And each president abused his position worse than his predecessor did.
Ford's pardon of Nixon made the horrors of the current administration -- "our long national nightmare," to use Ford's own words -- possible. Today, the White House is occupied by Nazis for Jeezus, mass murderers and war criminals all, and under the Military Commission Act, they will never be prosecuted for their crimes under U.S. law.
Thank you Gerald R. Ford. Rest in peace.
For the record, the late president almost cost me my first job out of college.
It was 1976, I was finishing up my junior year at Michigan State University, and Ford was running for re-election -- well, technically his first election -- as president. I knew that I needed some practical experience as a professional journalist in order to make a career in the field, so I was scrambling to land some sort of summer internship.
After a great deal of work and worry, about three weeks prior to the end of the spring quarter, I landed an interview with The Lapeer County Press, a big weekly newspaper in Lapeer, MI, about 70 miles northeast of East Lansing. I had a 9 a.m. appointment on a weekday, and I knew that the trip would take between an hour and 15 minutes and an hour and a half. So I got up plenty early, about 6 a.m., and headed for my car. As a student living in a dormitory, my parking options were limited to a remote lot far to the south of the main MSU campus, across the old Grand Trunk Railroad line that cut across the southern part of campus.
What I didn't know (or maybe just didn't pay attention to) was that day was the same day that the Ford campaign chose to charter a train and put their candidate on a whistle stop tour across the State of Michigan. Ford boarded the train early in the morning in Port Huron, at the eastern edge of the state, and rode it all the way west along the Grand Trunk line, with a few speechifying stops along the way, ending up that night in Chicago. Yes, that same Grand Trunk line separating the campus from my car.
My intention was to leave the parking lot, drive east over to Hagadorn Road, and then north along the east edge of East Lansing to connect up with I-69 and head out to Lapeer. I followed this plan until I turned onto Hagadorn Road and into a huge traffic jam. I was a few hundred yards from the railroad crossing, and I could see there wasn't any train blocking it. I wondered whether or not there had been an accident, so I turned on my car radio to a station that had frequent news broadcasts.
No, there hadn't been any accident. There was a whistle stop tour. In honor of the president, and just in case someone might wish him ill, the Secret Service had gone across the state and blocked off every single goddamn railroad crossing along the Grand Trunk and was set to keep them blocked until the president's train had passed. I was stuck in a huge mass of cars, with no way to turn around.
So I waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. About 2-1/2 hours later, the president's train passed by, a three car Amtrak affair. I may have caught a glimpse of Ford -- there looked like a couple of dudes in suits on the back end of the last car. Or it may just have been more Secret Service agents. I was too far away to tell.
After the train passed and they finally reopened the railroad crossing, I drove as fast as I could get away with up to Lapeer. There weren't any cell phones in those days, except for extremely rich people, and I didn't have enough money on me to pay for a toll call. But I did get to my job interview, two hours late.
About a week later, Editor Lloyd Stoyer called me up to offer me the position. Later, he told me that I'd lost a lot of points with him by showing up so late with such a lame excuse as being detained by the Secret Service, so frankly, I was the second choice for the internship. I only got the job because I had a car and the first choice didn't.
That was my first personal experience with the extreme disruption that is caused whenever The President Of These United States condescends to go out and grace the Little People with His Presence. I remember hearing back in the 1990s about how President Clinton and his family decided to take a winter vacation out in Jackson Hole, WY. Naturally, the Secret Service forced the resort owner to cancel every other reservation in the hotel for that time period, some of which were paid in advance and for which no compensation was offered. No compensation was offered to the hotel owner, either.
But at least he got a photo with the president that he could mount on the wall. Which was more than the owners of all the adjacent hotels got, because the Secret Service ordered all of those hotels emptied, as well.
And people wonder why I'm an anarchist.
Needless to say, Gerald R. Ford did not get my vote in November 1976 (as usual, I voted Libertarian). I won't pretend that my single vote turned the election, although Ford did lose to Jimmy Carter.
In fact, the main reason Ford lost, according to the history books, had nothing to do with any whistle stop tours in Michigan or anywhere else. It had everything to do with the presidential pardon he gave to Richard Nixon for his predecessor's crimes against humanity, one month after Nixon resigned from office.
Now I happen to believe that Ford was an honest and honorable man, at least for a U.S. president, relatively speaking. I believe he had the very best of intentions when he pardoned Nixon -- to heal the country after the turmoil surrounding the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, and because he feared the country would be ungovernable if he did otherwise. (Personally, I prefer my country ungovernable.) I even kinda sorta believe that there was no deal made for him to pardon Nixon when Nixon appointed Ford vice president, at least not in so many spoken words.
But I also believe Ford was absolutely dead wrong to pardon Nixon.
The reason it was dead wrong was that it set a horrible precedent. Nixon got away with horrible crimes against humanity -- the monstrous Christmas bombing of Hanoi, for example, and his attempt to destroy the Constitution. Instead, he went on to collect his massive government pension and make thousands and thousands more on the speaker circuit. Eventually, he had a stroke and died peacefully in his sleep.
And every president who came after Nixon knew he had an out, no matter what he did. And each president abused his position worse than his predecessor did.
Ford's pardon of Nixon made the horrors of the current administration -- "our long national nightmare," to use Ford's own words -- possible. Today, the White House is occupied by Nazis for Jeezus, mass murderers and war criminals all, and under the Military Commission Act, they will never be prosecuted for their crimes under U.S. law.
Thank you Gerald R. Ford. Rest in peace.
posted by Da Zedman at 9:08 PM
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