By Edwin Cooney
Not long ago, one of my readers, a lady raised in Michigan who is as sweet as sugar candy and a lifelong Democrat to boot, sent me a GOP clarification on the subject of the real threat to Social Security. She said she found it “quite enlightening”. What this little missive does is to inform readers that it’s the Democrats and not the Republicans who are destined to deprive “we the people” of Social Security benefits.
It begins by informing the reader that FDR made five promises when he signed the Social Security Act on August 14th, 1935. These promises were the following:
The Social Security program would be voluntary;
The people would be taxed no more than one percent on their first $1,400 of annual income;
The money would be spent solely on Social Security and on no other government program;
The money you and your employer paid into FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act) would be tax deductible; and finally,
The benefits you receive would never be taxed.
It should be first established that the Republican Party, and especially the conservative wing of that party, has never been either impressed or interested in FDR’s promises. Since the 1930s, there are people who have labeled him “the root of all evil.” Additionally, his Conservative enemies have called him everything from a Communist to a “syphilitic cripple”. Even more, Republicans, and especially Conservatives, have made it clear that your day-to-day welfare is none of their concern—especially as taxpayers.
As for FDR’s supposed promises, the realities are:
Not all job categories were under the Social Security system when the program began. Since people could work in any number of jobs that weren’t then covered by FICA, there was a degree of volunteerism—but none specifically promised by FDR.
In addition, the first $3,000 – not $1,400 -- was taxable up to one percent. The tax rate went up from one to three percent between 1935 and 1949.
As for FDR’s supposed promise that Social Security payments would never be taxed, Social Security was one of Roosevelt’s greatest legacies, but it is still vulnerable to future generations.
The rest of this propaganda piece tries to convince potential 2008 voters that LBJ, Jimmy Carter and “Albert Arnold Gore” deliberately and systematically withdrew FDR’s original guarantees in exchange for cheap votes from the poor and from selfish, greedy immigrants.
The author is Vincent Peter Render. He says he thinks it was in 1958 that Senate Democratic Majority Leader Lyndon Banes Johnson first extracted moneys from the Social Security System -- with compliance from liberal Democratic majorities in both Houses, of course. What he doesn’t mention is that in order to do so, LBJ and the rest of those bad old Democrats would have needed the signature of Dwight David Eisenhower, the then Grand Old Man of the Republican Party, in order to accomplish their mischief. So, it didn’t happen.
What President Lyndon B. Johnson did do in 1968 was to sign legislation that added money to the Social Security trust fund as part of the budget for accounting purposes. My guess is that the reason for this was political; after all, no good Democrat would deny that LBJ was a master politician. My guess is that the reason for adding benefits in the Social Security trust fund to the budget was so that the fiscal 1969 budget, LBJ’s last, would balance. Nevertheless, according to the Social Security Administration website, the rules for the distribution of trust fund money haven’t been changed since the fund was established in 1939. Money from the Social Security trust fund can only be lent to securities which have the “full faith and credit” of the Federal government through treasury bills, treasury bonds and special issue bonds. It is true that the government can lend itself money via these instruments and spend the money on other projects, but this malady cannot be ranked as one of LBJ’s countless sins.
By confusing Social Security benefits with SSI (Supplemental Security Income) benefits, Mr. Render wants you to believe that, in 1978, Jimmy Carter gave your hard earned Social Security Benefits to immigrants who never contributed to the system. SSI benefits have no link to Social Security. The SSI program is a Federal welfare program for the benefit of the poor -- legal immigrants included. It was signed into law by GOP President Richard M. Nixon on October 30th 1970.
Finally, in dramatic fashion, Vincent Peter Render describes Vice President “Albert Arnold Gore’s” Senate tie-breaking vote raising the percentage of Social Security taxes on high-income beneficiaries from fifty percent to eighty-five percent. What he doesn’t tell you is that in April 1983, President Reagan, at the recommendation of the Greenspan Commission, signed legislation overruling the Treasury Department’s past decisions that Social Security benefits weren’t taxable. That Reagan-approved legislation taxed Social Security benefits for the first time.
Conservatives deeply believe that private insurance companies could have given John and Suzie Q. Citizen a better deal on their potential retirement incomes than FDR gave them. The fact of the matter remains, however, that these same ideologues believe even more deeply that your day-to-day Social Security is none of the government’s concern. Of course they’d love to have you turn your Social Security checks over to them so they could play with them just as they played with your money in the stock market of the 1920s.
You know, FDR had a phrase that he often used to describe the force behind propaganda pieces such as Vincent Peter Render’s plea. He called such pleas exactly what they were: “crocodile tears”.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, July 28, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
INDEPENDENCE DAY PERSPECTIVE
By Edwin Cooney
Seventeen days have passed since we celebrated the two hundred thirty-second anniversary of our American way of life. You may be surprised, but I’ve decided that the biggest news stories of this year’s Fourth are nearly as revealing about the people of our “Great Republic” as the big news was on this day two hundred thirty-two years ago.
Back in 1776, the big story of the day was that the delegates to the Second Continental Congress had voted for independence from Great Britain. However, the ultimate ramifications of that news story were quite uncertain. This year’s Fourth of July featured not one big story, but two biggies. Certainly, the ramifications of either of these two stories are presently obscure and require “the fullness of time” to show their ultimate significance.
The first news story is about Kent Couch of Bend, Oregon who completed his third historic flight aboard his Balloon-Propelled Lawn Chair while the rest of us feasted on Fourth of July picnic fare. Couch flew well into neighboring Idaho, several hundred miles from his Bend, Oregon home. Surely many wondered why he would want to do something like that.
The surface answer is that Kent Couch has a hero, the late Larry Walters. Walters launched his lawn chair to a height of some sixteen thousand feet over Southern California on July 2nd, 1982, but he had a most unpleasant flight. Walters became cold and frightened. He was spotted by several aircraft pilots who reported him to the Federal Aviation Administration. Using a pellet gun to puncture the helium balloons that held him aloft, Walters landed safely, although his equipment became entangled around power lines causing a power shortage to several hundred thousand Southern California PG&E customers. The whole venture cost Walters fifteen hundred dollars in Federal Aviation Administration fines. Later, Walters said he did it as a gag and would never do it again. Larry Walters, as it turned out, lived a rather lonely existence preferring the vastness of the wilderness to the limelight of notoriety. It was in the wilderness that he committed suicide in 1993.
Fortunately things are much brighter for Kent Couch. Not only does Mr. Couch have the loving support of his wife Susan in his venture, he also has a corporate sponsor to help him perfect lawn chair flight. So, even Capitalist America has gotten into the act. Even more, Kent Couch says he wants to be the first one to fly a lawn chair across the English Channel and later across Australia.
So the question is, what does this say about the values of modern American manhood? Is it as brave and purposeful as it once was? Neither George Washington nor Kent Couch knew how tragically or happily their July Fourth challenges would turn out. These two events do have danger and uncertainty in common, but what else?
The second big news story from our recent Fourth of July celebration concerns Joey Chestnut of San Jose, California. Television and newspaper photos vividly show Chestnut and rival Takeru Kobayashi of Japan stuffing fifty-nine hot dogs into their faces at the annual hot dog eating contest on New York’s Coney Island. Chestnut won in a two-minute overtime when he scarffed down an additional five hot dogs more quickly than Kobayashi.
It’s interesting to note that this contest also has corporate sponsorship. Nathan’s, a restaurant on Coney Island, has been sponsoring the International Hot Dog Eating Contest each Independence Day since Tuesday, July 4th, 1916. In some ways, this July Fourth tradition could be considered more dangerous than Mr. Couch’s obsession. If Kent Couch avoids an accident he certainly won’t do nearly the harm to his physiognomy that Joey Chestnut and his rival Kobayashi appear to be doing to theirs. The twenty-four year-old Chestnut began competing in competitive eating contests in 2005. One has only to Google his name to discover some incredible feats or, if you prefer, feasts.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that we’re foolish to be intrigued by Kent Couch’s or Joey Chestnut’s adventures or that we’re less a people than we were two hundred thirty-two years ago. I am suggesting, however, that we’re certainly different. How crucial that difference is may be another formidably daunting question.
Some may suggest that both Couch and Chestnut can be explained as children of the 1960s generation. Remember, however, that Nathan’s began its sponsorship of public gluttony back in 1916 when we were being governed by one of this nation’s most puritanical leaders, that “no nonsense”, self-righteous Presbyterian by the name of Woodrow Wilson. It is no good to blame the “flower generation” for the eccentricities of today’s me me me generation.
Ah! But perhaps there is a clue to those eccentricities. Our nation is a completed and beloved Republic these days, so there’s plenty of time as well as plenty of resources for the aggrandizing of the individual. Two hundred thirty-two Fourths of July ago was a time of national struggle although not all Americans, by any means, were unanimous in wanting to be free of their king. However, a small but resourceful group of Americans banded together and won the right for individuals to shine however foolish or wholesome their purposes may be.
So today, shine is exactly what they do.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Seventeen days have passed since we celebrated the two hundred thirty-second anniversary of our American way of life. You may be surprised, but I’ve decided that the biggest news stories of this year’s Fourth are nearly as revealing about the people of our “Great Republic” as the big news was on this day two hundred thirty-two years ago.
Back in 1776, the big story of the day was that the delegates to the Second Continental Congress had voted for independence from Great Britain. However, the ultimate ramifications of that news story were quite uncertain. This year’s Fourth of July featured not one big story, but two biggies. Certainly, the ramifications of either of these two stories are presently obscure and require “the fullness of time” to show their ultimate significance.
The first news story is about Kent Couch of Bend, Oregon who completed his third historic flight aboard his Balloon-Propelled Lawn Chair while the rest of us feasted on Fourth of July picnic fare. Couch flew well into neighboring Idaho, several hundred miles from his Bend, Oregon home. Surely many wondered why he would want to do something like that.
The surface answer is that Kent Couch has a hero, the late Larry Walters. Walters launched his lawn chair to a height of some sixteen thousand feet over Southern California on July 2nd, 1982, but he had a most unpleasant flight. Walters became cold and frightened. He was spotted by several aircraft pilots who reported him to the Federal Aviation Administration. Using a pellet gun to puncture the helium balloons that held him aloft, Walters landed safely, although his equipment became entangled around power lines causing a power shortage to several hundred thousand Southern California PG&E customers. The whole venture cost Walters fifteen hundred dollars in Federal Aviation Administration fines. Later, Walters said he did it as a gag and would never do it again. Larry Walters, as it turned out, lived a rather lonely existence preferring the vastness of the wilderness to the limelight of notoriety. It was in the wilderness that he committed suicide in 1993.
Fortunately things are much brighter for Kent Couch. Not only does Mr. Couch have the loving support of his wife Susan in his venture, he also has a corporate sponsor to help him perfect lawn chair flight. So, even Capitalist America has gotten into the act. Even more, Kent Couch says he wants to be the first one to fly a lawn chair across the English Channel and later across Australia.
So the question is, what does this say about the values of modern American manhood? Is it as brave and purposeful as it once was? Neither George Washington nor Kent Couch knew how tragically or happily their July Fourth challenges would turn out. These two events do have danger and uncertainty in common, but what else?
The second big news story from our recent Fourth of July celebration concerns Joey Chestnut of San Jose, California. Television and newspaper photos vividly show Chestnut and rival Takeru Kobayashi of Japan stuffing fifty-nine hot dogs into their faces at the annual hot dog eating contest on New York’s Coney Island. Chestnut won in a two-minute overtime when he scarffed down an additional five hot dogs more quickly than Kobayashi.
It’s interesting to note that this contest also has corporate sponsorship. Nathan’s, a restaurant on Coney Island, has been sponsoring the International Hot Dog Eating Contest each Independence Day since Tuesday, July 4th, 1916. In some ways, this July Fourth tradition could be considered more dangerous than Mr. Couch’s obsession. If Kent Couch avoids an accident he certainly won’t do nearly the harm to his physiognomy that Joey Chestnut and his rival Kobayashi appear to be doing to theirs. The twenty-four year-old Chestnut began competing in competitive eating contests in 2005. One has only to Google his name to discover some incredible feats or, if you prefer, feasts.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that we’re foolish to be intrigued by Kent Couch’s or Joey Chestnut’s adventures or that we’re less a people than we were two hundred thirty-two years ago. I am suggesting, however, that we’re certainly different. How crucial that difference is may be another formidably daunting question.
Some may suggest that both Couch and Chestnut can be explained as children of the 1960s generation. Remember, however, that Nathan’s began its sponsorship of public gluttony back in 1916 when we were being governed by one of this nation’s most puritanical leaders, that “no nonsense”, self-righteous Presbyterian by the name of Woodrow Wilson. It is no good to blame the “flower generation” for the eccentricities of today’s me me me generation.
Ah! But perhaps there is a clue to those eccentricities. Our nation is a completed and beloved Republic these days, so there’s plenty of time as well as plenty of resources for the aggrandizing of the individual. Two hundred thirty-two Fourths of July ago was a time of national struggle although not all Americans, by any means, were unanimous in wanting to be free of their king. However, a small but resourceful group of Americans banded together and won the right for individuals to shine however foolish or wholesome their purposes may be.
So today, shine is exactly what they do.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, July 14, 2008
JERRY FORD—MR. LEADER, MR. PRESIDENT, MR. AMERICA
By Edwin Cooney
No, I didn’t vote for President Ford that sunny Election Day in upstate New York where I lived back in 1976. My heart was (and still is) with Jimmy Carter.
I was even a little tired of hearing about President Jerry Ford’s all around “good guy” image. I wanted a president interested in creating jobs and offering assistance to the unemployed, who was concerned about the needs of patients rather than the demands of the American Medical Association.
Even more, it seemed to me, “good old Jerry” had been way too chummy with “good old Dick Nixon” and I was thoroughly tired of the whole mess in Washington. I was tired of Jerry Ford and Earl L. Butz, the Nixon/ Ford administrations’ acerbic Secretary of Agriculture who was known for his racist jokes. I was tired of Jerry Ford and the Joint Chiefs of Staff General George Brown who kept making anti-Semitic statements that President Ford would apologize for hoping that everyone would forget that they were made at all. I was tired of Jerry Ford and his veto pen of which he was too proud to suit this voter. I was even tired of President Ford and his brilliant Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger.
As far as I was concerned, it was time to throw the rascals out. True, I had helped put them there back in 1968 when I, just as enthusiastically as GOP House Minority Leader Ford, voted for Richard Nixon. Still, for me, it was time for President Gerald Rudolph Ford -- with all of his wholesomeness -- to go on a permanent vacation.
So, away he went and time set in. Jimmy was great as far as I was and am still concerned, but America lost patience with the Carter complexity which was often exacerbated by his outwardly gentle style and willingness always to examine his own psyche. It made him appear less than decisive. In fact, CBS commentator Eric Severeid compared Ford and Carter on the final night of the 1976 presidential campaign, observing that while there may be something good to say about Jimmy Carter’s willingness to examine his own psyche, there was also something positive about President Ford’s seeming not to realize that he even HAD a psyche – thus leaving his mind alone.
As time passed, I began to let the best of Jerry Ford back into my awareness. It began in October 1981 when Nixon, Carter, and Ford represented President Reagan at the funeral of assassinated Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat. Nixon stayed in the Middle East to do what Nixon did best—showcasing himself as a foreign policy expert—while Jimmy and Jerry flew home aboard one of President Reagan’s Air Force One jets. Not only did they talk during the long flight home, they actually bonded and became permanent friends, each throwing political and personal differences aside. For the rest of his life except when political seasons rolled around, Jerry Ford had nice things to say about the man who had denied him election to a full one thousand, four hundred, and sixty-one day presidential term.
Slowly, I began to allow myself to realize what a truly extraordinary human being Jerry Ford was from the day of his birth on July 14th, 1913 as Leslie Lynch King to Tuesday, December 26th, 2006—the day he died.
As many young people do, Jerry Ford had to come to terms with the nearly unfathomable. He discovered at age twelve that he had two dads and had been named after both of them. Leslie Lynch King of Omaha, Nebraska was his biological father. Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids, Michigan, his mother Dorothy’s second husband, was his adopted dad. Young Jerry chose the senior Jerry as the senior Jerry had once chosen young Jerry—and that was that—except for a healthy tear or two.
Jerry Ford was both a good student and a good athlete. A member of the National Honor Society, he finished in the top five percent of his 1931 graduating class at South High in Grand Rapids. An excellent student and athlete at Michigan State University, young Ford was the center on the College All Stars team that played the Chicago Bears in the 1935 College All Stars summer classic against the NFL. He’s the only U.S. President who was drafted by two NFL franchises (the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers). Jerry Ford is also the only President to have been an Eagle Scout, not to mention a magazine model for men’s clothing. Having completed his studies at the University of Michigan, he went on to Yale University where he was employed both as an assistant football coach and as head boxing coach before being admitted to the law school.
Admitted to the Michigan State Bar in 1941, young Ford practiced law in Grand Rapids with Philip A. Buchen. World War II would interrupt their law practice, but certainly not their friendship. Jerry Ford’s friend Phil Buchen would become White House Counsel to the President Gerald R. Ford in the 1974 White House.
Jerry Ford served on the USS Monterey as Physical Fitness Officer and as Assistant Gunnery Officer during World War II. He rose from Ensign to Lieutenant Commander.
Upon his return home in February1946, he joined the law firm of Butterfield, Keeney and Amberg. Jerry Ford, Sr. had served as local Republican Party Chairman during World War II and that service had to have been an important factor in young Jerry’s decision to run for Congress in 1948.
Realizing that World War II had forever changed America’s role in international politics, he challenged and defeated GOP isolationist incumbent Congressman Bartel J. Jonkman 23,632 to 14,341 in the 1948 GOP primary. In the General Election of 1948, he defeated Democrat Fred J. Barr 74,191 votes to 46,972.
In between those two political events came his October 15th, 1948 marriage to Elizabeth Anne (Betty) Bloomer, a thirty-year-old divorcee. Betty and her husband William Warren had amicably divorced in 1947. Only a short time later, at the urging of Peg Neuman, a mutual friend, Betty agreed to meet Jerry Ford for a drink and from then on they never stopped dating.
Thus at the beginning of 1949, the newlyweds found themselves house hunting in Washington D.C. Jerry’s new job would be demanding and political campaigning would become almost a continuous way of life for the young couple and their growing family.
Jerry Ford’s twenty-five plus years in the House were hectic but pleasant ones. His ultimate political goal was to become Speaker of the House of Representatives. Jerry Ford was a plain spoken but pleasant man who liked people. Because his liking for people was so evident, people naturally were drawn to him.
Politically he was an internationalist in foreign affairs and a moderate conservative on domestic issues. His “conservatism” was more instinctual than it was ideological or doctrinaire. He was cautious of spending on most things, but as he admitted during his first speech to Congress after becoming President in 1974, he sometimes favored spending money on worthy Grand Rapids, Michigan projects more than he favored “wasteful spending” -- especially in Democratic congressional districts.
His rise in the House accelerated in the 1960s. In 1963, he became Chairman of the House GOP conference and, in 1965, he challenged House Minority Leader Charles Halleck of Indiana and defeated him by a vote of 73 to 66.
As GOP House Leader, he became nationally known as the House half of the “Ev and Jerry show” — which was the weekly briefing that Jerry Ford, as House GOP Leader, and Republican Senate Leader Everett Dirksen held for the press. During these meetings, Ev and Jerry would comment on Johnson administration policies. Dirksen, with that deep, almost “other worldly” voice would make some pithy observation about LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, or Congress, and Jerry would laugh in all the right places.
Then there was Ford’s appointment by President Lyndon B. Johnson as one of two House members to serve on the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Congressman Ford co-wrote the book “Portrait of an Assassin” with Warren Commission assistant John R. Stiles in which he endorsed the commission’s conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
Essentially, Gerald Ford was a combination of moderate partisan and moderate compromiser. He wasn’t always either thoughtful or fair. He could be testy and partisan when it came to attacking President Johnson or defending President Nixon. His attempt to impeach Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas was partisan retaliation for Liberal attacks on President Nixon’s failed Supreme Court nominees in 1969 and 1970.
Then suddenly in October 1973, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned and a Watergate-plagued Richard Nixon turned to the neighborly Midwesterner Jerry Ford to take his place. Only the most partisan Democrats seriously questioned Ford’s credentials to become Vice President. Some believe that Nixon nearly chose Jerry Ford for Vice President in 1960 and even considered him in 1968. So he was confirmed, becoming Vice President of the United States on the night of Thursday, December 6th, 1973. He would be sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger before President Nixon and a Joint Session of Congress.
Nine months and three days later on that sweltering Washington D.C. Friday, August 9th, 1974, the tall, burly Michigander was sworn in as our thirty-eighth President. His term as President, which lasted two years, five months and eleven days, was deeply marred by President Ford’s decision to pardon former President Richard Nixon of all crimes and misdemeanors which he may have committed. Honest and genial as he truly was, Jerry Ford could not get out from under the suspicion of millions that he’d made a political deal rather than a principled judgment when it came to the fate of his friend Dick Nixon.
President Ford’s successes were modest but solid. There was the December 1974 Vladivostok arms agreement which led to the successful Reagan Strategic Arms settlement in the 1980s. Then there was the Helsinki agreement in 1975 in which both East and West agreed to noninterference in one another’s internal affairs which led to an easing of travel restrictions in Eastern Europe.
The May 1975 rescue of the U.S. Merchant Ship Mayaguez which had been captured briefly in Cambodian waters was credited largely to President Ford’s coolness and determination in the face of an international crisis.
Although President Ford was philosophically favorable to business, he signed four consumer bills in 1975 providing for oversight protection in areas such as consumer credit and appliance warranties as well as real estate purchases.
Originally opposed to assisting New York City when it faced default, President Ford signed legislation providing for low interest loans to assist the city after it had adjusted its own fiscal imbalances.
In April 1975, Gerald Ford became the first President since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 to see American forces driven from foreign soil when North Vietnam overran Saigon and renamed it Ho Chi Min City. However, most Americans didn’t blame the President or his administration because they were more anxious than President Ford to be rid of Vietnam.
A good politician in the best sense of the word, Jerry Ford knew how to use and balance ideologies in politics. He was glad to be considered a political Conservative, especially as that ideology gained national favor, but he used Conservatism rather than being controlled by it. Even more impressive, he nearly won the 1976 election with Richard Nixon tied around his neck.
With the possible exception of Harry Truman, Jerry Ford was probably closer to the ideals of “Mr. and Mrs. America” than any other modern president. He lived a modest life even while in Congress,. He spoke plainly. He appeared to think problems through in a practical rather than an ideological way. It was easy to imagine Jerry Ford as a Boy Scout master, a high school history teacher, a Chamber of Commerce president – or even as your dad.
As President, Gerald R. Ford lacked the grandfatherly wisdom of Ike; the glamour of Jack Kennedy; the grandiose vision of LBJ; the political cynicism of Richard Nixon; the earnestness of Jimmy Carter; the suavity of Ronald Reagan; the breeding of George Herbert Walker Bush; the political wiliness of Bill Clinton; and the determined adventurism of President George Walker Bush. However, more than any of the above, Jerry Ford as President of the United States came across as one of us.
He would pay the price necessary to protect the presidency and the nation from the time consuming and ongoing turmoil of Richard Milhous Nixon—and he would simultaneously protect his friend Dick Nixon from the country’s national wrath.
My guess is that if you were to ask him why he acted as he did, he’d remind you that Richard Nixon was first and foremost an American citizen who in some ways had given the nation his best. Then he’d remind you that one’s fate as a person matters more than one’s fate as a politician.
Then I think he’d leave you to figure the rest out for yourself.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
No, I didn’t vote for President Ford that sunny Election Day in upstate New York where I lived back in 1976. My heart was (and still is) with Jimmy Carter.
I was even a little tired of hearing about President Jerry Ford’s all around “good guy” image. I wanted a president interested in creating jobs and offering assistance to the unemployed, who was concerned about the needs of patients rather than the demands of the American Medical Association.
Even more, it seemed to me, “good old Jerry” had been way too chummy with “good old Dick Nixon” and I was thoroughly tired of the whole mess in Washington. I was tired of Jerry Ford and Earl L. Butz, the Nixon/ Ford administrations’ acerbic Secretary of Agriculture who was known for his racist jokes. I was tired of Jerry Ford and the Joint Chiefs of Staff General George Brown who kept making anti-Semitic statements that President Ford would apologize for hoping that everyone would forget that they were made at all. I was tired of Jerry Ford and his veto pen of which he was too proud to suit this voter. I was even tired of President Ford and his brilliant Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger.
As far as I was concerned, it was time to throw the rascals out. True, I had helped put them there back in 1968 when I, just as enthusiastically as GOP House Minority Leader Ford, voted for Richard Nixon. Still, for me, it was time for President Gerald Rudolph Ford -- with all of his wholesomeness -- to go on a permanent vacation.
So, away he went and time set in. Jimmy was great as far as I was and am still concerned, but America lost patience with the Carter complexity which was often exacerbated by his outwardly gentle style and willingness always to examine his own psyche. It made him appear less than decisive. In fact, CBS commentator Eric Severeid compared Ford and Carter on the final night of the 1976 presidential campaign, observing that while there may be something good to say about Jimmy Carter’s willingness to examine his own psyche, there was also something positive about President Ford’s seeming not to realize that he even HAD a psyche – thus leaving his mind alone.
As time passed, I began to let the best of Jerry Ford back into my awareness. It began in October 1981 when Nixon, Carter, and Ford represented President Reagan at the funeral of assassinated Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat. Nixon stayed in the Middle East to do what Nixon did best—showcasing himself as a foreign policy expert—while Jimmy and Jerry flew home aboard one of President Reagan’s Air Force One jets. Not only did they talk during the long flight home, they actually bonded and became permanent friends, each throwing political and personal differences aside. For the rest of his life except when political seasons rolled around, Jerry Ford had nice things to say about the man who had denied him election to a full one thousand, four hundred, and sixty-one day presidential term.
Slowly, I began to allow myself to realize what a truly extraordinary human being Jerry Ford was from the day of his birth on July 14th, 1913 as Leslie Lynch King to Tuesday, December 26th, 2006—the day he died.
As many young people do, Jerry Ford had to come to terms with the nearly unfathomable. He discovered at age twelve that he had two dads and had been named after both of them. Leslie Lynch King of Omaha, Nebraska was his biological father. Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids, Michigan, his mother Dorothy’s second husband, was his adopted dad. Young Jerry chose the senior Jerry as the senior Jerry had once chosen young Jerry—and that was that—except for a healthy tear or two.
Jerry Ford was both a good student and a good athlete. A member of the National Honor Society, he finished in the top five percent of his 1931 graduating class at South High in Grand Rapids. An excellent student and athlete at Michigan State University, young Ford was the center on the College All Stars team that played the Chicago Bears in the 1935 College All Stars summer classic against the NFL. He’s the only U.S. President who was drafted by two NFL franchises (the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers). Jerry Ford is also the only President to have been an Eagle Scout, not to mention a magazine model for men’s clothing. Having completed his studies at the University of Michigan, he went on to Yale University where he was employed both as an assistant football coach and as head boxing coach before being admitted to the law school.
Admitted to the Michigan State Bar in 1941, young Ford practiced law in Grand Rapids with Philip A. Buchen. World War II would interrupt their law practice, but certainly not their friendship. Jerry Ford’s friend Phil Buchen would become White House Counsel to the President Gerald R. Ford in the 1974 White House.
Jerry Ford served on the USS Monterey as Physical Fitness Officer and as Assistant Gunnery Officer during World War II. He rose from Ensign to Lieutenant Commander.
Upon his return home in February1946, he joined the law firm of Butterfield, Keeney and Amberg. Jerry Ford, Sr. had served as local Republican Party Chairman during World War II and that service had to have been an important factor in young Jerry’s decision to run for Congress in 1948.
Realizing that World War II had forever changed America’s role in international politics, he challenged and defeated GOP isolationist incumbent Congressman Bartel J. Jonkman 23,632 to 14,341 in the 1948 GOP primary. In the General Election of 1948, he defeated Democrat Fred J. Barr 74,191 votes to 46,972.
In between those two political events came his October 15th, 1948 marriage to Elizabeth Anne (Betty) Bloomer, a thirty-year-old divorcee. Betty and her husband William Warren had amicably divorced in 1947. Only a short time later, at the urging of Peg Neuman, a mutual friend, Betty agreed to meet Jerry Ford for a drink and from then on they never stopped dating.
Thus at the beginning of 1949, the newlyweds found themselves house hunting in Washington D.C. Jerry’s new job would be demanding and political campaigning would become almost a continuous way of life for the young couple and their growing family.
Jerry Ford’s twenty-five plus years in the House were hectic but pleasant ones. His ultimate political goal was to become Speaker of the House of Representatives. Jerry Ford was a plain spoken but pleasant man who liked people. Because his liking for people was so evident, people naturally were drawn to him.
Politically he was an internationalist in foreign affairs and a moderate conservative on domestic issues. His “conservatism” was more instinctual than it was ideological or doctrinaire. He was cautious of spending on most things, but as he admitted during his first speech to Congress after becoming President in 1974, he sometimes favored spending money on worthy Grand Rapids, Michigan projects more than he favored “wasteful spending” -- especially in Democratic congressional districts.
His rise in the House accelerated in the 1960s. In 1963, he became Chairman of the House GOP conference and, in 1965, he challenged House Minority Leader Charles Halleck of Indiana and defeated him by a vote of 73 to 66.
As GOP House Leader, he became nationally known as the House half of the “Ev and Jerry show” — which was the weekly briefing that Jerry Ford, as House GOP Leader, and Republican Senate Leader Everett Dirksen held for the press. During these meetings, Ev and Jerry would comment on Johnson administration policies. Dirksen, with that deep, almost “other worldly” voice would make some pithy observation about LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, or Congress, and Jerry would laugh in all the right places.
Then there was Ford’s appointment by President Lyndon B. Johnson as one of two House members to serve on the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Congressman Ford co-wrote the book “Portrait of an Assassin” with Warren Commission assistant John R. Stiles in which he endorsed the commission’s conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
Essentially, Gerald Ford was a combination of moderate partisan and moderate compromiser. He wasn’t always either thoughtful or fair. He could be testy and partisan when it came to attacking President Johnson or defending President Nixon. His attempt to impeach Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas was partisan retaliation for Liberal attacks on President Nixon’s failed Supreme Court nominees in 1969 and 1970.
Then suddenly in October 1973, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned and a Watergate-plagued Richard Nixon turned to the neighborly Midwesterner Jerry Ford to take his place. Only the most partisan Democrats seriously questioned Ford’s credentials to become Vice President. Some believe that Nixon nearly chose Jerry Ford for Vice President in 1960 and even considered him in 1968. So he was confirmed, becoming Vice President of the United States on the night of Thursday, December 6th, 1973. He would be sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger before President Nixon and a Joint Session of Congress.
Nine months and three days later on that sweltering Washington D.C. Friday, August 9th, 1974, the tall, burly Michigander was sworn in as our thirty-eighth President. His term as President, which lasted two years, five months and eleven days, was deeply marred by President Ford’s decision to pardon former President Richard Nixon of all crimes and misdemeanors which he may have committed. Honest and genial as he truly was, Jerry Ford could not get out from under the suspicion of millions that he’d made a political deal rather than a principled judgment when it came to the fate of his friend Dick Nixon.
President Ford’s successes were modest but solid. There was the December 1974 Vladivostok arms agreement which led to the successful Reagan Strategic Arms settlement in the 1980s. Then there was the Helsinki agreement in 1975 in which both East and West agreed to noninterference in one another’s internal affairs which led to an easing of travel restrictions in Eastern Europe.
The May 1975 rescue of the U.S. Merchant Ship Mayaguez which had been captured briefly in Cambodian waters was credited largely to President Ford’s coolness and determination in the face of an international crisis.
Although President Ford was philosophically favorable to business, he signed four consumer bills in 1975 providing for oversight protection in areas such as consumer credit and appliance warranties as well as real estate purchases.
Originally opposed to assisting New York City when it faced default, President Ford signed legislation providing for low interest loans to assist the city after it had adjusted its own fiscal imbalances.
In April 1975, Gerald Ford became the first President since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 to see American forces driven from foreign soil when North Vietnam overran Saigon and renamed it Ho Chi Min City. However, most Americans didn’t blame the President or his administration because they were more anxious than President Ford to be rid of Vietnam.
A good politician in the best sense of the word, Jerry Ford knew how to use and balance ideologies in politics. He was glad to be considered a political Conservative, especially as that ideology gained national favor, but he used Conservatism rather than being controlled by it. Even more impressive, he nearly won the 1976 election with Richard Nixon tied around his neck.
With the possible exception of Harry Truman, Jerry Ford was probably closer to the ideals of “Mr. and Mrs. America” than any other modern president. He lived a modest life even while in Congress,. He spoke plainly. He appeared to think problems through in a practical rather than an ideological way. It was easy to imagine Jerry Ford as a Boy Scout master, a high school history teacher, a Chamber of Commerce president – or even as your dad.
As President, Gerald R. Ford lacked the grandfatherly wisdom of Ike; the glamour of Jack Kennedy; the grandiose vision of LBJ; the political cynicism of Richard Nixon; the earnestness of Jimmy Carter; the suavity of Ronald Reagan; the breeding of George Herbert Walker Bush; the political wiliness of Bill Clinton; and the determined adventurism of President George Walker Bush. However, more than any of the above, Jerry Ford as President of the United States came across as one of us.
He would pay the price necessary to protect the presidency and the nation from the time consuming and ongoing turmoil of Richard Milhous Nixon—and he would simultaneously protect his friend Dick Nixon from the country’s national wrath.
My guess is that if you were to ask him why he acted as he did, he’d remind you that Richard Nixon was first and foremost an American citizen who in some ways had given the nation his best. Then he’d remind you that one’s fate as a person matters more than one’s fate as a politician.
Then I think he’d leave you to figure the rest out for yourself.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, July 7, 2008
CONFESSIONS OF A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE
By Edwin Cooney
Yep, it’s true. Even as Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and others were crisscrossing our great nation pleading for money and votes from underpaid and over-taxed Americans, I too was scheming to run for President.
True, the office I sought doesn’t have the capacity for either good or mischief that the President of the United States possesses, but the office of President of the Batavia, New York State School for the Blind Alumni Association is somewhat important to a few hundred people who live around “this great nation of ours.” (Goodness, I even sound like one of those big time candidates, don’t I!)
The New York State School for the Blind has served students between the ages of five and twenty-one living with blindness since it opened in 1868—just three years after the close of the Civil War. (Many of its original students were blinded Civil War veterans.).
On the occasion of the school’s fiftieth anniversary in 1918, the Alumni Association was formed to support the educational and vocational aspirations of those who had attended or were attending the school. This year, our Alumni Association celebrated its ninetieth anniversary.
Of course, much has changed over the years. Those attending classes today at the school’s beautiful eleven acre campus bedecked with stately oaks and elms are multi-disabled students rather than the “normal” blind. Thus, to many of us, our beloved old alma mater seems to be a hospital as much as it does the school we once both loved and loathed returning to in the fall. As for the membership of the Association, it’s getting older, and its membership is no longer being refreshed due to the serious physical limitations of the school’s current population.
Hence, the entity I sought to lead is mostly about celebrating times gone by, and less about anticipating the future. We do, of course, make contributions to on-campus activities which lend themselves to such assistance, but our main focus is the planning of our annual reunion. So, you might well ask, why run for the presidency of an organization with a limited future? The answer is simple. Whatever our dreams for the future, we must live in and make meaningfully happy the “here and now”. Even more, the NYSSB Alumni Association is made up of people whose affection I cherish and whose interests I’d love to serve.
So I ran. I have ideas about the budgeting process as well as about other organizational and operational matters that I intended to put forward as President. It wasn’t much of a campaign. I believe Steve, who was the organization’s official nominee, had his Albany constituency pretty well lined up behind him. Bonnie, who was also originally a presidential candidate, instead accepted the Vice Presidency. She has provided a lot of very generous personal help to a lot of people over the years.
So, I lost. Some say not by very much, but lose I did. I’ve been telling people that I have the distinction of being the most seriously defeated presidential candidate in 2008 and that my percentage of votes was about that which Congressman Dennis Kucinich might receive in Crawford, Texas.
I write of this because I think it’s important to keep in sight a reality that it appears many activists of all political stripes seem to overlook. If an office of leadership is worth running for, its occupant must receive the cheerful support of everyone, including opposition activists, until a new political season rolls around. I’m certainly glad I ran for this small time presidency and I would like to have won. However, I expect to cheerfully serve in the appointed position I’m told I’ll likely be asked to occupy.
The future is uncertain for all would-be leaders whether our name is Barack, Hillary, John, Steve or Edwin. We attain our elective offices out of personal passion and commitment with the help of a lot of people who have their own hopes and expectations.
It was fun to have run and to have anticipated the possibility of presidential success and personal popularity. Thus, there’s really no need for me to despair. As sure as Christmas, Fourth of July, and Income Tax day, NYSSB’s political season will, in just two short years, be upon us once again.
Hmm, I wonder if I’ll run again!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Yep, it’s true. Even as Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and others were crisscrossing our great nation pleading for money and votes from underpaid and over-taxed Americans, I too was scheming to run for President.
True, the office I sought doesn’t have the capacity for either good or mischief that the President of the United States possesses, but the office of President of the Batavia, New York State School for the Blind Alumni Association is somewhat important to a few hundred people who live around “this great nation of ours.” (Goodness, I even sound like one of those big time candidates, don’t I!)
The New York State School for the Blind has served students between the ages of five and twenty-one living with blindness since it opened in 1868—just three years after the close of the Civil War. (Many of its original students were blinded Civil War veterans.).
On the occasion of the school’s fiftieth anniversary in 1918, the Alumni Association was formed to support the educational and vocational aspirations of those who had attended or were attending the school. This year, our Alumni Association celebrated its ninetieth anniversary.
Of course, much has changed over the years. Those attending classes today at the school’s beautiful eleven acre campus bedecked with stately oaks and elms are multi-disabled students rather than the “normal” blind. Thus, to many of us, our beloved old alma mater seems to be a hospital as much as it does the school we once both loved and loathed returning to in the fall. As for the membership of the Association, it’s getting older, and its membership is no longer being refreshed due to the serious physical limitations of the school’s current population.
Hence, the entity I sought to lead is mostly about celebrating times gone by, and less about anticipating the future. We do, of course, make contributions to on-campus activities which lend themselves to such assistance, but our main focus is the planning of our annual reunion. So, you might well ask, why run for the presidency of an organization with a limited future? The answer is simple. Whatever our dreams for the future, we must live in and make meaningfully happy the “here and now”. Even more, the NYSSB Alumni Association is made up of people whose affection I cherish and whose interests I’d love to serve.
So I ran. I have ideas about the budgeting process as well as about other organizational and operational matters that I intended to put forward as President. It wasn’t much of a campaign. I believe Steve, who was the organization’s official nominee, had his Albany constituency pretty well lined up behind him. Bonnie, who was also originally a presidential candidate, instead accepted the Vice Presidency. She has provided a lot of very generous personal help to a lot of people over the years.
So, I lost. Some say not by very much, but lose I did. I’ve been telling people that I have the distinction of being the most seriously defeated presidential candidate in 2008 and that my percentage of votes was about that which Congressman Dennis Kucinich might receive in Crawford, Texas.
I write of this because I think it’s important to keep in sight a reality that it appears many activists of all political stripes seem to overlook. If an office of leadership is worth running for, its occupant must receive the cheerful support of everyone, including opposition activists, until a new political season rolls around. I’m certainly glad I ran for this small time presidency and I would like to have won. However, I expect to cheerfully serve in the appointed position I’m told I’ll likely be asked to occupy.
The future is uncertain for all would-be leaders whether our name is Barack, Hillary, John, Steve or Edwin. We attain our elective offices out of personal passion and commitment with the help of a lot of people who have their own hopes and expectations.
It was fun to have run and to have anticipated the possibility of presidential success and personal popularity. Thus, there’s really no need for me to despair. As sure as Christmas, Fourth of July, and Income Tax day, NYSSB’s political season will, in just two short years, be upon us once again.
Hmm, I wonder if I’ll run again!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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