Was Gerald R. Ford a good president?

Question

I'm doing a project and need to know whether or not he was a good president and conclusions on his presidency.

Answer 1

He was a crooked president, just like Nixon.  He pardoned Nixon for his crimes which is as bad as committing them himself.  

Answer 2

Yes a very good President under very trying times

Answer 3

I was going to answer this question, but I like Coo-coo bananas' response  (right up above mine) and endorse his answer to be the best.  Ford was the last decent Republican in the White House, one of the few besides Lincoln.

However, Nixon's vice-president (Spiro Agnew) got out of going to prison. So don't say that in your project. He did resign in disgrace for having accepted bribes while Governor of Maryland.

Answer 4

He is largely credited with being an OK president, didn't unite the country, didn't blow up the world.

Those who say he was a good president point to his pardon of Richard Nixon stating that he spared the country the turmoil of convicting a former President who was still popular in many areas.

Those who say he was a bad president point to his pardon of Richard Nixon stating that it was an inside job, Ford had been chosen specifically to issue the pardon, and it cheated the country out of receiving justice for the man who had caused so much pain to the country and allowed a known criminal to then rehabilitate his name at public expense.

Aside from that, his economic policies (WIN 'Whip Inflation Now' buttons and excitement, Hooray!) did not really help the country, and he actually was extremely divisive, vetoing virtually everything that Congress sent to him.

Answer 5

Ford was the last Republican president we have had who was a decent human being.  In fact he was so decent that some broke-down, rouge-wearing former actor, who'd switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican, decided to challenge him for the Republican nomination in 1976.  Its very rare for that to happen, where an incumbent president is challenged for renomination by a member of his own party.  The infighting just to secure the nomination against this laughable challenge helped to weaken Ford, and his pardon of Nixon was too much, but still, Carter just won by a hair.  But it worked out OK though, because the extreme right wing was then able to seize control of the Republican party, and inaugurate a new era of dirty politics complete with smear tactics and outright lies, and theyve been running the country into the ground ever since.

Some people find it sinister that Ford was a member of the Warren Commission, which did the official investigation of John Kennedy's assassination.  But he was also an Eagle Scout, and was a starter on the football team at the University of Michigan.  He was the first naval aviator to become president.  While he was in the Navy he became a "Japanese Ace", as he destroyed seven US planes.  Two of these he crashed at Horace Mann airport in Chapel Hill NC, where he was attending Navy preflight school, something still remembered by the locals.  Ford was also our clumsiest president, always on the news falling down the plane steps or off the stage.

Another thing that hurt Ford in 1976 was the fact that nobody had voted for him in the first place except the people of one congressional district in Michigan.  He'd been a member of the House of Representatives in 1972.  Then Nixon's vice president had to leave to go to prison, when his felonies while governor of Maryland came home to roost, and Ford was selected by his party to be VP.

It was also very strange that twice in a month somebody tried to shoot him, and both times it was a woman.  One of them was one of Charlie Manson's girls, part of the little group that behaved so bizarrely during Charlie's trial, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme.  The episode above somebody referenced actually did not involve the Cambodian government, it was pirates, honest to god pirates, operating off a large island in the South China Sea, that seized the SS Mayaguez cargo ship.  Ford sent in the troops onto their base on Hainan Island, freed the crew and the ship.  There were 32 American troops killed if I remember correctly.

It was a very strange time.

Answer 6

Ford only served as President for abot 2 1/2 to three years. I believe he was was neither good or bad. He was a good and honorable person, but ee did not accomplish much while in office..

He did do a good job confronting Cambodia when they captured  one of our small Navy vessels and taking the crew captive. He responded with a military response, and the Cambodians quickly backed down and released the American prisioners.

His biggest mistake was granting Richard Nixon a pardon for his involvement in the Watergate scandal. That was the biggest issue that caused him to lose the election to Jimmy Carter in 1976.