etee's Blog

Much commotion is being made over comments that Gerald Ford made in an interview with Bob Woodward, which were just published, in which he expressed a "strong" disagreement with the Bush Administration's decision to invade Iraq.

As expected, some leftwing blogs are upset about the fact that this "vital information" was not published in time to help John Kerry out in 2004, while some on the right are incensed that it was published while W was still in office (or even at all.) The Moderate Voice discusses how this shows the division in the GOP between the Old School conservatives and the neocons (and the possible adverse effect to John McCain's presidential aspirations), and Polimom sums the whole thing up pretty well when she says that Ford

...would probably be surprised by his posthumous importance and assumed influence on current politics.

To me, this really shows the difference between those like Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan on one side, and Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton on the other. While both Ford and Reagan understood what the former in "former President" means, and what their role as "elder statesman" was, Carter and (after a while) Clinton seem to feel that, even though they have been relieved of command (one by the voters, the other by the Constitution), they are still somehow supposed to be trying to steer the ship of state.

Gerald Ford, through his interview, may have done one final service for his country - and, as was his wont, he did it in a way that didn't make it "about him". This is one lesson that we somehow failed to learn from the Greatest Generation -- and I think we as a country are the poorer for it.