Would we have liked Ronnie Reagan more if he hadn’t killed anyone in, say, Nicaragua?
On the 27th of December the too-well-read Counterpunch Co-Head Honcho, Alexander Cockburn, posted an obituary of sorts respecting Gerald Ford. By the butts he kisses shall we know him. I’ve reproduced it below for your displeasure…just in case you have an ounce of sense left in the left side of your brain.

Talking about how Ford’s tranquil hand was relaxing for the nation after “the hectic fevers of the Nixon years” is merely absurd, compounding the ignorant myth that our country would’ve done worse if Nixon had been put through the arduous process of official (severe) punishment…setting a precedent for you know who. That “the country” needed calming down. That Ford’s gesture wasn’t self-serving. Etc. BUT BUT BUT… his comment about Ford’s contribution vis-a-vis East Timor is both disgusting and instructive (in terms of how worthless CPunch’s Left is, how The Left has a Cleft Palate that’ll never heal).

To say that Ford’s “green light” for Suharto in the mid-seventies was only “an appalling decision” that (HOWEVER) demonstrates Gerald’s “pacific instincts” is quite simply unforgiveable. As is documented in many reputable sources, including the dialogue at http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/27/1638254, that “green light” created a red blight to the tune of a third of East Timor’s population buying the farm.

One does not speak of “The Greatest U.S. President” in the context of USer History. Such blah blah only perpetuates many myths, not the least of which is that there’s basically a Good Guy strain that runs through the spine of this Abomination. No, one doesn’t talk that way unless one is trying to score journalistic points among an in-crowd, a callous coterie focused on angles of writing for a deadline in lieu of needs, the bleeding of Humanity.

Some say CPunch won’t post me anymore because I have repeatedly called them on giving priority to maintaining their Subscription Base, playing to the left crowd’s popular taste, hacking their way to the greatest possible readership numbers. Who knows? I do know, however, that as long as Alternativos buy into the popular game of Who Was The Greatest of U.S. Presidents…there’s not a chance in USer Hell of turning down the heat.

Forget Global Warming. We are the ones primarily responsible for Global Heating. We are The Worst.
We bid a sad adieu to Gerald Ford. Here at CounterPunch it has always been our position that Gerald Ford was America’s greatest President. Transferring the Hippocratic injunction from the medical to the political realm, he did the least possible harm. Under Ford’s tranquil hand the nation relaxed after the hectic fevers of the Nixon years.

As a visit to the Ford presidential library discloses, the largest military adventure available for display was the foolish U.S. response to the capture of the U.S. container ship Mayaguez by the Khmer Rouge on May 12, 1975. As imperial adventures go, and next to the vast graveyards across the planet left by Ford’s predecessors and successors, it was small potatoes.

Ford was surrounded by bellicose advisors such as his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger; his vice president, Nelson Rockefeller; his chief of staff, and later secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld and his presidential assistant, Dick Cheney. The fact that this rabid crew were only able to persuade Ford to give the green light for Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor–an appalling decision to be sure — is tribute to Ford’s pacific instincts and deft personnel management. Unlike George W. Bush, Ford was of humane temper and could mostly hold in check his bloodthirsty counselors.

Kissinger was part of the furniture when Ford took over, after Nixon’s resignation on August 8, 1974. With latitude to chose, Ford made sensible selections, none more fruitful than his Attorney General, Edward Levy, who in turn prompted Ford to nominate John Stevens to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he has long distinguished himself and dignified Ford’s choice by being the most humane and progressive justice.

As a percentage of the federal budget, social spending crested in the Ford years. Never should it be forgotten that Jimmy Carter campaigned against Ford as the prophet of neo-liberalism, precursor of the Democratic Leadership Council, touting “zero-based budgeting”.

If Ford had beaten back Carter’s challenge in 1976, the neo-con crusades of the mid to late Seventies would have been blunted by the mere fact of a Republican occupying the White House. Reagan, most likely, would have returned to his slumbers in California after his abortive challenge to Ford for the nomination in Kansas in 1976.

Instead of an weak southern Democratic conservative in agreement to almost every predation by the military industrial complex, we would have had a Midwestern Republican, thus a politician far less vulnerable to the promoters of the New Cold War.

Would Ford have rushed to fund the Contras and order their training by Argentinian torturers? Would he have sent the CIA on its mostly costly covert mission, the $3.5 billion intervention in Afghanistan? The nation would have been spared the disastrous counsels of Zbigniev Brzezinski.

Those who may challenge this assessment of Ford’s imperial instincts should listen to the commentators on CNN, belaboring the scarce cold commander-in-chief for timidity and lack of zeal in prosecuting the Cold War. By his enemies shall we know him.

During Ford’s all-too-brief tenure a mood of geniality was the rule. Even the attempted assassinations of the president by Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and Sara Moore, in September, 1975, had a slapdash, light-hearted timbre. The arts flourished, as is attested by Vicki Carr’s frequent appearance in the photographic record of White House galas.

At the side of America’s greatest president was America’s most sympathetic First Lady, Betty, whose enduring memorial is the Betty Ford Clinic, home port for beleagured boozers. We send our sympathies to the former First Lady.