Trust

Gerald Ford died earlier this week. I was too young to have a polittical conciousness when he was president (my first political memory, in fact, is voting for John Anderson in my school's election in 1980) but I've always known who he was in relation to Richard Nixon.

I've been listening to NPR most of most weekdays for months now, "All Things Considered" and "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer," among other programs I really like, such as "Fresh Air," "The World," and "Marketplace." I find myself pretty attached to Jim Lehrer's voice, though I like Ray Suarez and Margaret Warner as well, who seem to have been doing a lot of the anchoring recently (well, Jim's 72, he can take as many breaks as he likes). The News Hour had excellent coverage on Ford and Nixon and Watergate.

Everything that I heard - I believe it was Wednesday - sounded like President Ford was a decent man. Over and over it was said that he was honest and straightforward, forthright, and courageous, and that with him the "imperial presidency" of Nixon was over. Many of the things said on both programs were sort of compare/contrast essays about Ford's and Nixon's administrations.

When I heard all this, I thought, "When they're describing what Ford wasn't, they are describing what Nixon was, and that sounds a lot like the current administration." "Secretive," "imperial presidency," "evasive" (though I have never heard Nixon described as "stupid"). And an unpopular war to boot.

I don't trust the president.

http://www.npr.org/search.php?text=gerald+ford&sort=DREDATE%3Anumberdecreasing&aggId=0&prgId=2&topicId=1012&how_long_ago=7
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/remember/july-dec06/ford_12-27.html