Ford called Carter a 'disaster'

[ckramer]

In 25 years of interviews with his hometown paper that could only be released upon his death, former President Ford once called Jimmy Carter a "disaster" who ranked alongside Warren Harding, and said Ronald Reagan received far too much credit for ending the Cold War.

"It makes me very irritated when Reagan's people pound their chests and say that because we had this big military buildup, the Kremlin collapsed," Ford told The Grand Rapids Press.

The best president of his lifetime, Ford said, was a more moderate Republican: Dwight D. Eisenhower.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070112/ap_on_re_us/ford_presidents

[maxsolomon]

1. who cares?

Jesus H. Christ would have failed given Carter's circumstances.

And I don't need Gerald Goddamn Ford to tell me that Reagan sucked & it was Gorbachev that deliberately let the air out of the USSR's sails. I was there, too.

[lancdem]

2. Interesting observation about Reagan

[0rganism]

12. but, for some reason, not worthy of a headline

:shrug:

[gulliver]

39. "Ford says Reagan doesn't deserve credit for ending the Cold War"

There you go.

[Missy M]

3. Seems Mr. Nice Guy Ford wasn't quite as nice as everyone...

thought. Too bad he didn't give himself a critique.

[Nihil]

16. Give himself a critique? Think about two things at the same time?

Surely you remember who was the *first* president of the USA to be described as
being "unable to fart and chew gum at the same time"?

(Clue: It wasn't Reagan and it wasn't the dumbass in the Whitehouse today)

[baldguy]

4. Right, the Camp David Peace Accords were a disaster.

[jedicord]

5. So Ford was too chickensh*t to let people know what he really

thought until after he died so he wouldn't have to defend his words.

Really strong leader, he.

Edited to add "until".

[Lisa]

7. that Washington Post interview embargo wasn't an isolated case, evidently

I thought that Ford had a reputation for being straightforward with people? Only on his terms, I guess.

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. Proves he was a coward

and an ass.

[Psephos]

24. Proves exactly the opposite. n/t

[donheld]

31. how so?

:shrug:

[TankLV]

28. my first thoughts, too...

typical repuke...

but he was still "nice" or "good" by comparison...

says alot about the current crop of repukes, doesn't it!

[Virginia Dare]

33. He should have outed Cheney and Rumsfeld as the criminals

that they are, and repudiated them before his death too.

[Bjornsdotter]

6. and LBJ said about Ford

...that jerry played too much football without his helmet.

Cheers

[greenman3610]

8. the Kremlin happened to fall while Reagan was standing there

smiling and drooling.

[brentspeak]

27. I hope you're not ridiculing Reagan because of his Alzheimer's

[VegasWolf]

10. Who cares what the Pardoner had to say! Five days of spectacle over his death. Jesus. nt

[BayCityProgressive]

11. Fuck President Ford

he was a kinder gentler Bush. look who was in his cabinet for Christ's sake!

[devilgrrl]

13. I hear Ford thought the Bush Crime Family were even WORSE

:eyes:

[angstlessk]

14. Didn't Carter run AGAINST Ford and WIN...wow...for him to call Carter a disaster

under those conditions is relatively mild considering todays politics?

[happydreams]

15. Operation Desert Claw

We've all heard of October Surprise, what about Desert Surprise?


Carter's Operation Desert Claw sabotaged:
http://old.valleyadvocate.com/25th/archives/bushs_water...

........The mission proved disastrous. At least two American helicopters crashed into each other in the desert long before they made it anywhere near Teheran. Eight Marines were killed. Carter looked ineffectual and frustration with the hostage crisis escalated.
Unfortunately, the operatives in charge of Desert Claw may not have been loyal to Carter -- or to the U.S. Carter held deeply alienated a broad range of CIA operatives by trying to clean up the Agency when he first came to power. Admiral Stansfield Turner, the tough but honest Navy man Carter put in charge at the CIA fired some 600 "spooks" soon after taking command. Many were deeply loyal to former Director George Bush and to the "Old Boy" network that serves as the Agency's true infrastructure.
That loyalty may have carried over to sabotage of Operation Eagle Claw. For the man who served as chief mission planner was none other than Richard Secord, who later surfaced as a major kingpin in the shady arms dealings between the Reagan White House and the contras of Nicaragua. A top staffer at a key base in Eagle Claw's catastrophic helicopter support operation was none other than the legendary Colonel Oliver North. Working closely with him as a logistical planner was Albert Hakkim, who later sat by Secord's side at the Congressional Iran-contra hearings and wept of his love for Oliver North.
As historian Donald Fried has put it "Precisely the people in the intelligence community commissioned to develop some kind of rescue for the hostages were those elements of covert action close to William Casey and hostile to Carter."
Casey, of course, later became Reagan's CIA chief. But higher up in the chain at the time of the failed rescue mission was Donald Gregg, a member of Carter's National Security Council who later surfaced as s high-level Bush operative. Gregg's close personal ties to Bush became a serious issue in light of his extensive dealings with key contra figures tied both to the Iran-contra scandal and illegal drug shipments coming from Central America. Gregg is now Bush's ambassador to South Korea...........

[54anickel]

18. Link doesn't seem to be working...n/t

[Lisa]

20. I bet if this happened on Bush's watch, he would have blamed the troops!

Remember how he was swaggering around, pretending that he was making all the decisions during the Afghanistan invasion? Funny how he hardly says a word about that now.

Carter was blamed for other people's mistakes (or worse, as the article suggests) -- but he stood there and took it.

[Judi Lynn]

30. Here's your article. Don't know what happened to the link, but this one works now:

http://old.valleyadvocate.com/25th/archives/bushs_watergate.html

Photos of Donald Gregg, mentioned in your article, who's _Bush's South Korea ambassador now.


Thanks for educating us with this information.

[happydreams]

41. Thanks. I just got back online today. What's he trying to say

in that middle picture??? :rofl: No, I won't say it.
:hi:

[William Seger]

17. Sheeet, wonder what he though of Nixon, then

[zonkers]

19. At two very critical moments in history Ford lied about how he really felt and

what he was really thinking -- and its not till he dies, when it does us no good, do we find out. He lied to us about the real reason he pardoned Nixon (because they were friends) and about the fact that he didn't approve Bush's prosecution of the war -- that he was critical of it.

Life is so short, don't we deserve a little up front honesty from our leaders. Obviously, Ford did not think so.

[Lisa]

21. especially a leader who makes a career out of supposedly restoring honesty ...

... and trustworthiness to the White House, after the Nixon debacle.

Ironic, isn't it!

[zonkers]

35. Tragically, pathetically ironic. What a creep. No wonder Betty drank.

[liberalpragmatist]

22. He also later softened his attitude towards the Carter years - read the whole thing

In 1981, Ford said: "I think Jimmy Carter would be very close to Warren G. Harding. I feel very strongly that Jimmy Carter was a disaster, particularly domestically and economically. I have said more than once that he was certainly the poorest president in my lifetime."

But two years later, he praised Carter's performance on the Panama Canal treaty, China and the Middle East. And in 1998, he said Carter "will be looked on as a better president than some comments we hear today."

"He was a very decent, fine individual," Ford told the paper. "There were no major mistakes. There just weren't a lot of exciting results."

Much more interesting in that article are his views about Reagan:

Ford said Reagan, who challenged him unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination in 1976, was "a great spokesman for attractive political objectives" such as a balanced budget and defeating communism, "but when it came to implementation, his record never matched his words."

Reagan was "probably the least well-informed on the details of running the government of any president I knew," Ford said. In a separate interview, he said Reagan "was just a poor manager, and you can't be president and do a good job unless you manage."

Ford contended his own negotiation of the Helsinki accords on human rights did more to win the Cold War than Reagan's military buildup. Other key factors were the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Europe after World War II and the establishment of NATO, he said.

"When you put peace, prosperity and human rights against poverty, a massive unsuccessful military program and a lack of human rights, communism was bound to collapse," he said. "No president, no Democrat or Republican, can claim credit for those programs. I'll tell you who deserves the credit — the American people."

[nedbal]

29. - read the whole thing - read the whole thing - read the whole thing

[goforit]

23. Yahhh, Carter was such a disaster that he had him speak at his funeral!

[Zorra]

25. Ford pardoned Nixon. Nixon's trial and conviction would have brought

some integrity to our government, and healing to the nation. The republican party would have been toast, and the country would have been saved. Instead, we ended up with Reagan as President, the douchebag who laid the foundation for our current struggle with domestic fascism.

Ford was the real disaster here.

[Porcupine]

26. WTF!? America OWES James Earl Carter a huge debt.

The energy crisis response laws that Carter pushed through during his four short years in office saved our butts. During the Carter years Congress was able to pass CAFE restrictions on cars and energy conservation standards that applied to millions of buildings built during the 80's and 90's.

If not for the actions taken by Carter we would not have had enough natural gas to get through last winter. As is it was touch and go. The gas savings of vehicles built due to CAFE standards meant that US citizens had billions of extra dollars each year to pump into the rest of the economy.

If Carters stances of human rights and reasonable and consistent diplomacy had been applied through the Reagan-Bush years we would not be at war today. The traitors that followed him were elected only due to the treason of Oliver North and George Bush the first. (Iran-Contra)

Where's Ford's grave. I've got some used beer he needs.

[Virginia Dare]

32. I have to agree with him on Reagan...

there were other forces at work as well, not to mention there was a lot of money and resources being sent in from the European and American labor movements, and other "leftist" organizations.

[AngryAmish]

34. I'm glad that shitbad is dead.

[bobthedrummer]

36. Unelected President Ford gave US: the pardon of Nixon; G.H.W.Bush

as Director of CIA for one year as well as envoy to China; Richard Cheney; Donald Rumsfeld and worse.

The worse includes the extreme RW Republican ideologies and criminal influences that were at the core of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and now the Decider.

President Ford enabled the operatives of what became known as Iran/Contra to expand their networks-networks that are still quite active today, what many of US call the BFEE.

Robert Parry's work is among the best there is when it comes to reporting on the history and current state of the Iran/Contra criminals.

Here's a link that details how the Iran/Contra criminal conspiracy began with the good old RW Republican boys of the former OSS, Bill Casey and John Shaheen, hooking up corrupt Iranian bankers like Cyrus Hashemi, Saudis like Adnan Khashoggi, Israeli arms merchants and a whole lot of other people-just to prevent President Carter's efforts to free the 52 US hostages taken by the Iranians for RW Republican Party political reasons--which is generally called the October Surprise.

"Bill Casey's Iranian" by Rober Parry
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile3.html

Robert Parry's updated Archive on part of the legacy of unelected President Ford
"The October Surprise Mystery"
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile.html

And here is Larry Chin's work on the latest ME policy recommendations featuring the input of Iran/Contras
"The Iraq Study Group: Official damage control and cover-up"
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1481.shtml#top

This is the corruption that President Ford put and kept in government with people like Poppy, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Kissinger, the Iran/Contras and the darkside influence of the national security/military/defense private sector-what he was too ashamed of to admit until after his death, what we call the BFEE.

[Imagevision]

37. Ford was Johnson's stooge in the Warren Comm. reporting back daily...

today's moron's claim he healed the country by pardoning Nixon? Ford merely got the corruption and Watergate off the front pages thus "healing this nation' anyone believing that is, i won't waste my time...

[susanna]

38. He was right re: Eisenhower.

The Military Industrial Complex was his warning to us (of course we didn't listen).

[Old Vet]

40. President Carter was to decent of an human being ...

To be president.