Death is sad, at least in most cases. But the death of a former president has become an almost cheery television event.
It has been more than 40 years since John F. Kennedy was assassinated. His successors died out of office, relatively painlessly, and most were well into old age. The passing of a retired commander in chief perks up the day with a wallop of stately special reports and bittersweet nostalgia (plaid jackets, “Saturday Night Live,” détente), without undue anxiety or grieving.
And in Gerald R. Ford, who was 93 and served less than one term, television has found the avatar of comfortable presidential fade-outs. The deaths of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon were too fraught with the Shakespearean tragedies they lived in office. Ronald Reagan’s life and two terms were so momentous that the days leading to his funeral, though full and colorful, were also weighed down with mournful Hollywood pageantry.
As president, the likable, reliable Mr. Ford was most memorable for pardoning Nixon; all day, television screens showed Mr. Ford’s address to the nation, as well as grainy color images of him looking on, stone-faced, as Nixon flung his arm in farewell from his helicopter on the White House lawn.
All the networks went live on Wednesday to Crawford, Tex., to cover President Bush’s tribute to his predecessor. Reporters stood vigil in front of the flags flying at half-staff at the White House, and in Rancho Mirage, Calif., and Grand Rapids, Mich. Most morning news programs were too respectful to repeat clips of Chevy Chase doing his pratfall impression of Mr. Ford as the great fumbler on “Saturday Night Live.” By midday, however, cable news shows were gingerly exploring the “lighter side” of Mr. Ford’s tenure.
In retrospect, it was remarkable how open to reporters the Ford White House was. On NBC “Today” flashed a black-and-white photograph by the former White House photographer David Hume Kennerly that showed Mr. Ford, seated at a table with three aides, in a long-sleeved shirt and pajama bottoms. (One of those aides was his chief of staff, Donald H. Rumsfeld, who recently retired as secretary of defense; Mr. Rumsfeld, along with Vice President Dick Cheney, who also worked in the Ford White House, stood out as among the most lasting, and contested, elements of Mr. Ford’s legacy.)
Mr. Ford’s presidential retirement was dignified and decent but not particularly distinguished: old news clips showed him in the 1980s and 1990s playing golf and attending fund-raisers for Republicans, not raising roofs for the homeless or public awareness about pandemics in Asia and Africa.
Richard Norton Smith, a former director of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum and Library, told ABC News that the former president “swam twice a day well into his 90s.”
On CBS the presidential historian Douglas Brinkley somewhat apologetically told Harry Smith, a host of “The Early Show,” that while Mr. Ford’s post-White-House legacy is eclipsed by the charity work of former President Jimmy Carter, “we must not forget what the Fords have done for people who have a drug addiction.” But it was Mr. Ford’s wife, Betty, who shattered taboos, first by publicly discussing her breast cancer, and later, her dependence on drugs and alcohol, and it was she who led the way for the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
After he tumbled into the presidency, Mr. Ford earned respect for the way he rose to the occasion. But as Wednesday’s television eulogies showed, it was his first lady who seized it.
Tom Brokaw, who covered the Ford White House for NBC, went on “Today” to lead the network’s special report, but on ABC it was Charles Gibson and not Diane Sawyer, who was on vacation. And that was a pity: Ms. Sawyer worked in the press office of the Nixon White House during the final days and was on the plane that took the disgraced president to San Clemente, Calif.; her reminiscences would most likely have been more interesting.
All of Mr. Ford’s acquaintances and biographers spoke of his modesty and stalwart nature. In an interview with Mr. Brokaw taped for Wednesday’s History Channel special, “Gerald Ford: A Man and His Moment,” his daughter, Susan, described him as the “Steady Eddie” of the family.
It seems that his persona was not so overwhelming that it drove commentators to fold into the shadows.
On “Today” the NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell mentioned that she last spoke to Mr. Ford in California last February, “when he came over to see me, and we had lunch.” (It is hard to imagine a former president in his 90s going out of his way to meet a television reporter, so it was hard not to suspect that Mr. Ford was going out of his way not to invite Ms. Mitchell over to his house.)
Except for Ann Curry, who on “Today” adopted her usual smarmily maudlin tone, most of the encomiums were by turns affectionate and respectful, but not overly mournful.
Mr. Ford lived on healthily and happily for three decades after leaving the White House; as even recent clips show, he, more than anyone, made the Oval Office seem like a ticket to longevity.
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