[[[Apologias are inevitable, and the hall of mirrors they create endless! The more you say, the more you saysaysaysaysaysaysaysay. Rather like a habit one could always break--and yet]]]

[[This is one of those times when I feel that bloggin' makes me one of millions of rubber ducks all rising up and down on the edges of the same waves, eyes forward blankly open in unison, bobbing gently in the water, sometimes a little out of line, all fundamentally the same direction...little quacking sounds making a cacaphony.]]

[Not to mention that it's so tired to indulge in softie, sentimental, slightly revionist, de mortuis media talk.]

But I haven't been able to shake the sense that I underestimated Gerald Ford a bit, especially when you compare the man's rhetoric to Bush's. He seems more genuinely religious, but more humble, more honest, more straightforward. He just seemed boring to me as a kid, I think. I think. I remember a lot of excitment about Carter (in my house? in general?). We went to his inaugural parade--I had the sense of it being really important, a new beginning of some kind.

I don't know that (I have ever thought) Jimmy Carter's presidency was a failure. I can see that his win was probably inevitable, that Ford's defeat was too, but it is interesting to note how hard-working straightforward people can't/aren't rewarded at the tempo of public opinion. I think Ford pardoned Nixon too fast--tactically--but maybe that was the point? Maybe doing it any other time or way would have synched up for further, worse reverberations, but this way he absorbed the effects at his own costs? I don't know that he "healed the nation"--that presumes weren't not in a state of dissention and dislike and fairly well house divided right now--but maybe he did something that had to be done regardless.

I will say this: his wife rocks. I certainly didn't know much about her then, but it's a very short hop from him to her, to admiring him for having and loving and supporting an outspoken, interesting, smart, strong wife (who studied with Martha Graham!). I also admire him for being accessible to the media.

[Everything here has been said, in every case, earlier, nothing's new. I'm just catching up with some of the rethinking of the last ten years, itself already in its 700billionth layer of back and forth.]

[[But it is a relief to just...not hate him. Know he tried. This is really a personal rejiggering of thinking more than anything. That should have happened already but was triggered, obviously enough, by the obituarial deluge! I am very proud that he was a Midwesterner. What about that.]]

[[[Maybe PDJames was right, that modern politics are dangerous as they replace religion. Can never get out of our leaders what we want.]]]

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