Gerald Rudolph Ford...
Rest In Peace

Although he was a President who angered me and many others when he pardoned Richard Nixon, I respectfully wish for God to accept and care for President Gerald Ford's soul for all eternity.

I frequently, perhaps usually, disagreed with his sharply moderate, if not liberal decisions and policies. I will however always admire his courage to speak his mind, clearly and staunchly. Contrary to current misstated opinion, he did support the war in Iraq, just not the premise that it should have been undertaken because of alleged WMD's. He felt Saddam was more than ample reason alone... I agree. He at least did not reflect the all too common liberal characteristic of flopping his opinion with the changing of political wind direction.

Similarly, my opinions do not flop one iota, either. That was, afterall, exactly my reason to be so exceedingly disappointed when he granted a "full and complete" Presidential pardon to impeached Republican President Nixon. I was no less a proud, Conservative Republican back then, yet I believed that pardoning a Republican, Democrat or otherwise, that was found to be so deeply immersed in scandal only lowered the bar for everyone else in politics. It was simply another act of blurring the line between right and wrong. Nixon should have been tried and imprisoned. The fact that he was a Republican should have had nothing to do with it. Perhaps in Ford's mind, it didn't. But it sure was not received that way and I think that was reality. Although I strongly disagreed, to his credit he did what he believed and never offered a single word of apology for his act.

It surely cost him the election almost two years later and instantly caused him scathing reviews from his earliest hours in office. Liberals now revere him as fair and "neutral"... how predictable. I would label him as left leaning, which is anything but fair and neutral. But he rigidly stood by his principles no matter what. I can at least have respect for that rare stance, essentially liberal and often wrong, or not.

Gerald Ford was our President, even if under strange and unfortunate circumstances. The fact that President Bush and most members of Congress could not, would not and did not make the time to appear at his Memorial Service in the Capitol Rotunda is simply shameful. The same logic that moved Ford to pardon Nixon should have moved our elected members of Congress and our current President to attend his services... Gerald Ford was also a former President of the United States! He deserved the same memorial respect that any deceased President would receive!

It should not be this way. This unacceptable absence is perhaps the most noteworthy portion of the occasion and is, in a word, unforgivable. It is only another deplorable failure of our elected representatives, but competitively one of the gravest to date. We, the American People, should be able to collectively fire and replace damn near all of them!