Tag Archives: Gerald Ford

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Trump takes low road while seeking high road

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Donald J. Trump sought — in yet another awkward pronouncement — to make nice with Hillary Rodham Clinton by saying he could have said something “very negative” about his opponent. He chose not to that. I guess he wanted us to believe that he is such an oh, so decent human being.

The Republican presidential nominee’s comments came during the joint appearance at Hofstra University.

Afterward, he told reporters that he was referring to Bill Clinton’s marital infidelity. He said “Chelsea was in the room” and he didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable.

So, there you have it.

Trump said during the event he showed restraint; then he told reporters later — on the record — precisely to what he was referring.

He chose not to say something, then he said it.

It reminds me of when then-Sen. Walter Mondale was asked during the 1976 presidential campaign whether Watergate would be an issue in the contest between Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican President Gerald R. Ford.

“No,” said the Democratic vice-presidential nominee with a huge smile, “I am not going to mention President Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon.”

That is the disgraceful non-denial route that Donald Trump is taking these days.

national news

Civility, good will come back to life

bush-and-michelle

Take a good look at this picture.

It is fast becoming my favorite image from this year’s election campaign.

You know who they are: former President George W. Bush and first lady Michelle Obama. They were attending the dedication today of the African-American museum in Washington, D.C., an exhibit that tells the comprehensive story of the African-American experience in this nation.

Presidents Obama was the keynote speaker today and he took time to heap plenty of praise on the work that President Bush (whose wife, Laura, also attended the ceremony) did to make this important exhibit a reality.

There’s something quite gratifying in seeing this image, of Michelle Obama embracing her husband’s immediate predecessor as president.

It’s also interesting — to me, at least — that the image was snapped by David Hume Kennerly, who happened to be the official White House photographer during President Ford’s administration. You see, Gerald Ford served at a time when Republicans and Democrats fairly routinely worked together to solve national problems.

We’ll soon relegate this image to the back of our memories as we proceed toward the end of this contentious election campaign.

I thought I’d share it here just as a reminder that civility, good will and good manners occasionally present themselves.

national news, political news

Perspective, folks … perspective!

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conspiracy theory

Social media are full of interesting tidbits, factoids, a bit of propaganda and pithy commentary.

The item I posted here showed up over the weekend on my Facebook news feed. It’s been passed around a good bit.

It comes from someone who obviously supports Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bid to become the next president of the United States.

It calls for “perspective” from those who insist that Clinton is the worst politician in American history ever to vie for presidency.

The private e-mail server issue hasn’t played out fully. My guess is that might never play out sufficiently to suit every single critic who believes she endangered national security while serving as secretary of state; that she put lives at risk by sending out top-secret messages on her personal e-mail server.

Recent history, though, is full of examples of presidents lying to our faces.

* * *

I’ll take issue, though, with one of the items noted in this anonymous post. The purveyor of this item seems to think President Ford’s pardon of President Nixon was an act of evil. It wasn’t.

Richard Nixon was party to a serious constitutional crisis, the one known as “Watergate.” He paid a terrible political price, arriving at the doorstep of impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives before resigning his office on Aug. 9, 1974.

Gerald Ford took over and a month or so later, issued a blanket pardon. His reason? To spare the nation more political agony.

I was furious at the time. So were many Americans. I wanted the former president to pay even more for what he did while at the nation’s helm. The cover-up, how he sicced the feds against his “enemies,” how he ordered the FBI to look the other way in investigating the break-in at the Democratic National Committee office.

Ford’s pardon of Nixon likely cost the president a chance at being elected in 1976.

It turned out, though, to be an act of courage.

Many years later, the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston bestowed its “Profile in Courage” award to President Ford for that decision. The late Sen. Ted Kennedy, speaking on behalf of his family, acknowledged in public remarks that he, too, was wrong to criticize the president for making that decision, but that he came to realize he did the right thing.

The rest of the items noted in the brief missive attached to this blog post? Yep. I agree with ’em.

Time for some perspective, folks.

business news, national news, political news

Gov. Pence takes the lead on tax returns

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This just in: Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is going to release his tax returns.

Meanwhile, the guy who heads the Republican Party’s presidential ticket, Donald J. Trump, continues to keep his tax returns away from public scrutiny.

Pence is running alongside Trump for the White House.

He told “Meet the Press” in remarks to be broadcast Sunday that he’s going to turn his tax returns loose for the public to inspect.

Oh, and what about Trump? “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd asked Pence. Trump will do so eventually, as soon as the Internal Revenue Service completes its audit.

Hold the phone, dude!

An IRS audit doesn’t preclude release of tax returns.

Once again, I shall state that Trump is refusing to do something that’s been customary for presidential candidates since 1976. No, there’s no law requiring release of the returns. It’s just been a bipartisan tradition that has its roots in the immediate post-Watergate era.

In 1976, Republican President Gerald Ford and Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter agreed to release their returns in reaction to the constitutional scandal that took down a president and sent others to prison.

I’m glad to see Gov. Pence doing the right thing.

Now …

How about the guy at the top of his ticket?

national news, political news

Facing an unhappy choice this fall

Clinton-and-Trump

It’s time to make an admission.

Others already have said it, but I’ll chime in with this: The election this autumn presents the unhappiest choice I’ve ever faced since I voted in my first presidential election way back in 1972.

At this very moment, I am not yet rock-solid certain what I’m going to do when I go to the polling place.

Republicans have nominated a certifiable buffoon/goofball/fraud/con artist as their presidential nominee. Donald J. Trump is unqualified at every level one can mention to sit in the Oval Office and make decisions as our head of state and government.

Democrats have nominated someone who is far more qualified — on paper — than Trump. Hillary Rodham Clinton, though, is trying to face down that darn “trust” issue. Is she to be trusted implicitly to tell us the truth when we need to know it? That is where I am having trouble with her candidacy.

Who’s left? The Libertarian ticket led by former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, whose signature issue is to legalize marijuana? The Greens, led by Jill Stein?

I’ve already declared in this blog that Democrats have gotten my vote in every presidential election. The first presidential ballot I ever cast, for the late Sen. George McGovern, remains the vote of which I am most proud.

I happened to be — if my Marine Corps friends don’t object to my stealing their service’s motto — one of the “few, the proud” to vote for Sen. McGovern. Then came Watergate and the resignation of President Nixon two years later and one became hard-pressed to understand how it was that the president won by as large a landslide as he did.

The next election four years later gave me a bit of heartburn. I truly admired President Ford and I didn’t really feel comfortable with Jimmy Carter. Well, you know what happened, right?

I’ve been comfortable with my choices every election season since.

Until this one.

You can count me as one of the millions of Americans who’s unhappy with the choices we have. I’ll have made up my mind in time for Election Day.

I’ll just keep it to myself.

business news, national news, political news

About those tax returns, Mr. Trump

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tax-return-form

Let’s revisit an issue that seems to have re-entered the debate over Donald J. Trump’s presidential candidacy.

Tax returns.

The Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee, Tim Kaine, brought the issue up again Wednesday night while accepting his party’s nomination. He asked out loud and in front of the nation why the GOP nominee won’t follow custom and release his tax returns.

He wondered — again out loud — whether Trump is hiding anything from the public whose votes he is seeking.

There’s no law requiring presidential and vice-presidential nominees to reveal their tax returns to the public. It has become a custom since the 1976 election between President Ford and former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter.

For four decades, candidates have released this information for public review.

Kaine and others have wondered many things about Trump’s personal financial information.

* Is he as rich as he says he is? I mean, he boasts constantly about his vast wealth.

* Is he giving sufficient amounts of his income to charity?

* Is he — as Sen. Kaine wondered — paying his “fair share of taxes”?

* Are there some foreign investments that need careful scrutiny? Hasn’t the candidate vowed to “put America first”?

* Does the real estate mogul have some connection with Russia, which has become a serious discussion point in recent days?

Trump has said he can’t release his returns because of an on-going audit. Internal Revenue Service officials say an audit does not preclude someone from releasing his or her returns.

Who’s lying here? I tend to believe the IRS version of what’s allowed and what is not.

Trump’s campaign is based in large part on his business acumen. He says he wants to do for the country what he’s done in private business. If that’s his major selling point, well, it seems to me that the public has a right to examine precisely what he has done in his business life.

The public also has the right to determine whether the income he has earned and the taxes he has paid match up the way they should — and must — for all the rest of us.

The nominee has said he’s “on your side.” Let’s see for ourselves.

national news, political news

‘I did not say a negative word about Donald Trump’

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Ted Cruz did not endorse Donald J. Trump when he spoke to the Republican National Convention delegates.

No. The junior U.S. senator from Texas spoke about conservative principles, the Constitution and faithfulness to principle.

But he didn’t “say a negative word about Donald Trump.”

Thus, Cruz said this morning in remarks to the Texas convention delegation, he is comfortable with the theme of his speech.

I am scratching my head this morning. I’m trying to shake the cobwebs loose.

I watched most of Sen. Cruz’s speech Wednesday night. I waited for the “Therefore, I intend to endorse …” moment. It didn’t come.

And when Cruz finished his speech, the hoots and jeers from the convention floor drowned out whatever cheers were coming from the floor.

My question this morning centers on this issue: If you’re a presidential nominee and you are in charge of the convention agenda, don’t you want to be sure that if your chief challenger is going to speak to the convention — during prime TV time — that the challenger endorses your candidacy?

So, this morning the punditry across the country isn’t talking about vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence’s remarks at the end of the evening. We’re talking instead about what Ted Cruz didn’t say.

I get that this isn’t the first example of challengers failing to endorse their party’s nominee at the convention. Ronald Reagan’s speech at the1976 GOP convention didn’t exactly offer a ringing endorsement of President Ford; Nelson Rockefeller was booed during his entire speech by Barry Goldwater delegates at the 1964 GOP gathering; Ted Kennedy finished his 1980 speech at the Democratic convention without endorsing President Carter and then was chased around the stage as Carter sought to raise his hand in that symbolic pose.

Trump has campaigned on his take-charge, can-do approach to everything.

He hasn’t taken charge of the political convention that has nominated him to run for president of the United States.

national news, political news

Sen. Dole reminds GOP of its dignified past

UNITED STATES - DECEMBER 20: Former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., salutes the casket of the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, as his body lies in state in the Capitol rotunda, as Dole's wife, former Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., looks on. Bob Dole and Inouye knew each other since they were recovering from World War II battle wounds. Dole was assisted to the casket saying "I wouldn't want Danny to see me in a wheelchair." (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

Many Republican luminaries are staying away from the Republican Party’s national presidential nominating convention.

But not all of them.

A serious man attended today’s opening of the convention in Cleveland.

He is former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole, the Kansas Republican who represented his state and served our country with tremendous honor.

Sen. Dole was there to support presumptive presidential nominee Donald J. Trump. That’s what party loyalists do, whether they’re Democrat or Republican. Dole is a loyalist to the core.

He also represents another time in this country when Republicans and Democrats could be political adversaries, not enemies.

MSNBC commentators took note of Dole’s distinguished career in public life. They brought up his years in the Senate. They mentioned how, in 1976, President Ford selected him as his running mate to assuage conservatives’ concerns. They talked also of Dole’s conservative principles as he ran for president in 1988 against fellow Republican George H.W. Bush.

Of course, they mentioned his losing 1996 presidential campaign against President Clinton.

Here’s another element of Dole’s service they mentioned: They talked about his heroic service in the Army during World War II, in which he suffered grievous injury while fighting the Nazis in Italy.

It was right after coming home from the battlefield that young Bob Dole would meet another young American with whom he would undergo rehabilitation. The forged a friendship in the rehab hospital that would last a lifetime.

The other young man was Daniel Inouye, who would become a U.S. senator from Hawaii, and who was as loyal to his Democratic Party as Dole is to the GOP.

Inouye also suffered near-mortal wounds during World War II. He would receive the Medal of Honor for his battlefield heroics.

“Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd took particular note today of when Sen. Inouye died and his friend Bob Dole stood in front of Inouye’s casket to salute him. He told the honor guard that his “good friend Danny wouldn’t want to see me sitting here” in a wheelchair, Todd said.

Dole represented a time when senators could disagree, but maintain personal affection and friendship.

I was gratified to see this member of the “greatest generation” one more time.

If only his political descendants — on both sides of the partisan divide — would follow the example of collegiality that he and his “good friend Danny” set for politicians all across the land.

national news, political news

There can be drama associated with VP pick

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You may choose to believe this if you wish … or you can say I’m full of mule muffins.

I actually have a “favorite vice-presidential selection moment” that I’d like to share with you. I’ll be brief.

I was watching CBS News’s coverage of the 1980 Republican Convention. Ronald Reagan was about to become the GOP nominee for president. Rumors were flying all over the place about some negotiations that were occurring between the former California governor and the 38th president of the United States, Gerald R. Ford.

The gossip was that Gov. Reagan wanted President Ford to become a sort of “co-president” who would run on the GOP ticket as the VP nominee. Obviously, though, Reagan was going to give Ford a whole lot more responsibility than what normally goes to the vice president.

Well, the convention was buzzing with the talk. Will Reagan do it? Will the former president accept this challenge?

CBS put correspondent Leslie Stahl on camera while she was walking through the convention floor. She’s going on and on about prospect of Ford joining Reagan.

Then she stopped for about a second and blurted out, “It’s Bush!”

Yep, it turned out to be George H.W. Bush, one of Reagan’s former GOP primary foes, the author of the term “voodoo economics,” which he used to describe Reagan’s tax plan for the country.

It just goes to show you that foes can become “friends” when the most politically expedient moment presents itself.

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Another key GOP thinker dumps Trump

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Brent Scowcroft isn’t a Republican In Name Only.

He’s been a solid GOP wise man for decades. He also served with distinction in the U.S. Air Force, earning three stars and retiring as a lieutenant general.

Scowcroft today endorsed Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton to be the next president of the United States.

If you place much value in these endorsements, this is a big deal.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/brent-scowcroft-endorses-hillary-clinton-224677

Scowcroft served as national security adviser to two Republican presidents: Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush. He knows war and he understands the value of international alliances.

That’s why he’s backing Clinton over her presumptive Republican rival, Donald J. Trump.

“Secretary Clinton shares my belief that America must remain the world’s indispensable leader,” Scowcroft said in a statement, touting her experience as secretary of state. “She understands that our leadership and engagement beyond our borders makes the world, and therefore the United States, more secure and prosperous. She appreciates that it is essential to maintain our strong military advantage, but that force must only be used as a last resort.”

Trump doesn’t get it.

He wants to build walls. He wants to remove the United States from its most important military/political alliance — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He wants to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

That doesn’t make the world safe, let alone “secure and prosperous.”

I can hear some of my Republican/Trump supporter friends now. They’ll blow off Scowcroft’s endorsement as being “irrelevant.” They’ll laugh it off. Scowcroft’s a has-been, they’ll say.

No. He’s a distinguished American patriot.