Friday, December 29, 2006

George W. Bush has at least one thing to look forward to...

Hello blogland. I am still alive, if only barely.

As I'm sure you folks know by now Gerald Ford, the only person never elected to the office of President or Vice-President, has died. I'm sure he was a good guy and/or a decent president, but I've concluded that the media LOVES dead presidents oh so much more than live ones. I havn't heard such glowing praise for a politician since Ronald Regan died. Did Gerald Ford do anything much besides pardon Nixon and tell New York City to "Drop Dead"? Was he the great "healer" that the recent media makes him out to be, or did he just pardon Nixon because they were buddies? Maybe its just that newsrooms feel like they have to atone for their unrelenting criticism of living politicians by either whitewashing or overplaying the significance their legacies when they die.

4 Comments:

At 12/29/2006 12:17:00 PM,

He also gave the green light for Suharto of Indonesia to invade East Timor and kill 200,000 people in December of 1975. 

Posted by Curtis

 
At 12/29/2006 10:17:00 PM,

Here's the media cycle:

1) Treat living presidents like mud while in office.
2) Treat living presidents like gold when out of office, e.g. Clinton and Old Bush (suddenly Old Bush is like, the Golden Best President Ever, did you notice??) "if only we were all as smart as these wise men who are out of office, we should listen to their sage counsel and send them on trips overseas to solve our problems or to raise money for us!"
3) Treat recently dead presidents like gold. See e.g. Ford and Reagan.
4) Treat long-dead presidents like Mud. Back to what we do with the living presidents... we just come up with new ways to do it... "THIS JUST IN! LINCOLN WAS GAY! JEFFERSON HAD AN AFFAIR WITH A SLAVE! JFK WAS DOPED ON ALL SORTS OF DRUGS!" etc, etc.
-Cincinattus

 
At 12/30/2006 08:21:00 PM,

The post-death glow is certainly not the best time for an objective assessment of a politican. Sad thing is is that most of us know so little about a lot of politicians that die that most of what we do know we learn during the "glow."

 
At 1/29/2007 02:46:00 PM,

Gerald Ford was "the only person never elected to the office of President or Vice-President"? Really? What about me? And you? And most other people?

 

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