Posted on 01/01/2007 2:21:15 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
In retrospect, it’s hard to imagine that President Gerald R. Ford ever came to be viewed as a klutz or as a man of modest intelligence.
He was neither. As reporter Bob Dart noted in Ford’s obituary, he was probably the most accomplished athlete ever in the White House. After being named Most Valuable Player on his 1934 University of Michigan football team, he was offered professional contracts by both the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions.
His athletic prowess in football carried over to golf, skiing and swimming. JFK may have effected athleticism for the newsreels, but Ford was the genuine article.
And yet, it’s Ford who, in Dart’s words, “gained a comical reputation for clumsiness while in the White House.” Considerable assistance came from comedian Chevy Chase, who often portrayed Ford stumbling or falling on “Saturday Night Live.” Here’s what Chase said last week about the routine, as reported by Reuters news service:
“He had never been elected, period, so I never felt he deserved to be there to begin with. This was just the way I felt then, as a young man and as a writer and a liberal.”
While Ford’s decision to pardon Richard Nixon for Watergate no doubt contributed significantly to his loss to Jimmy Carter, his depiction by the media and entertainment industry as a nice, well-meaning bumbler of modest intelligence conditioned the country to believe him inferior to the challenge.
But as his speechwriter, James C. Humes, wrote after his death, Ford’s “dean’s list grades at the University of Michigan were enough to earn him a scholarship to Yale Law School. In his rankings there, he topped fellow classmates Cyrus Vance and Sargent Shriver.”
Oft quoted was the LBJ crack that “Jerry Ford is a nice fellow, but he played too much football without a helmet.”
This genial dunce theme recurs in media treatment of Republican leaders, with some exceptions. Nixon was smart but evil. George H.W. Bush was genial, but intellectually inferior to Bill Clinton. Ronald Reagan was dumb and George W. Bush is too, while the Democrats they defeated — Carter, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry — were all intellectually superior.
The basis for that misperception about most conservatives and Republicans is that by and large they come from places unfamiliar to the New York-Washington media establishment. And it is that establishment, until the rise of the blogosphere, talk radio and cable television, that owned the business of deciding what’s news. They owned, too, the franchise on determining who in the political arena has substance, who’s serious and who’s not.
Conservatives were always disadvantaged in that milieu, and still are, because their constituents by and large were made up of what Ford affectionately called “the ordinary, the straight, the square [the quality] that accounts for the great stability and success of our nation.” It is, he said, “a quality to be proud of … a quality that many people seem to have neglected.”
That’s not Washington, nor is it the pressure groups demanding more government, nor is it the political industry that defines the nation’s problems in ways that make them the solution. It is therefore alien to everyday experience in the centers of opinion and government so, well, Grand Rapids and comfortable and straight.
It’s a mind-set like that of Chevy Chase that makes those “in the know,” in politics, academia, entertainment and the media, quite comfortable in dismissing Ford, Reagan or Bush as somebody who didn’t “deserve to be there to begin with” because they were the choice of the uniformed, misguided, self-interested, complacent and those lacking in compassion and kindness — in essence, the ordinary people who lived in places like Grand Rapids.
When liberal entertainers speak today of Bush, it’s with that same smug dismissive certainty that devalues his intelligence, his moral authority or his claim to the Oval Office.
Often with conservatives, it’s because the critics can’t comprehend their ideas, values or agendas — and therefore either assume they have none or that the ones they have lack merit. But in Ford’s day, a relative few news, opinion and entertainment figures in New York, Washington and Hollywood could turn an athlete into a national klutz and a Yale Law School graduate into an intellectual dullard.
That world passed, though, before the president did.
• Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
No, "effected" is correct in this context.
Since Kennedy was in fact not athletic at all, "effected" is incorrect. What the author is trying to say is that Kennedy's 'athleticism' was an affectation, meaning an artificial behavior or manner which is intended to impress. One use of 'affected' is to denote the putting on of affectation.
There it is, a fabrication based upon opinion and played over and over until, like an obnoxious advertisement, it wears ruts into the public consciousness.
This is and has been their MO for years.
JFK was an accomplished swimmer and diver, noted for pursuing the pay-for-action females he often swam with in the WH pool. It was said, with some authority, that his back problems began when he reached for one of the nude swimmers and twisted his back.
Quayle was Vice President 1989-1993 and the Republican candidate for the same office in 1992. He was not the incumbent in 1996.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1760854/posts?page=25#25
M-W is just what happens to be in my Bible study software (Logos - www.logos.com), probably because of a licensing deal. I haven't had any issues with it, but then I probably don't use it on a level where I would. (I wouldn't even know where to go to evaluate the battle of he dictionaries.)
(The topic is dictionaries, so I need to check the spelling twice) ;-)
Great article, but the confused usage of "effected" caught my eye, too. Bad writer or worse editor? Products of publik skools?
I didn't realize Ford was MVP at Michigan and he won a scholarship to Yale. This is just another in a long line of examples of how the media create blatantly false images.
That may be true in a few instances, but you have to grasp the fact that the liberal media has intentionally mischaracterized conservatives for 60+ years.
It's probably irritatingly off-topic but, will these people never learn the difference between 'affected' and 'effected'?
Rite write
I think people thought H.W. Bush was a bit of a whiner because of Dana Carvey's impression of him. Carvey even admitted that he sounds more like Paul Lynn than Bush.
Bump
All Democrats are "BRILLIANT"!!!
My Key Board ^ | 2/28/2004 | Robert Eimiller
Posted on 02/28/2004 2:45:11 PM EST by Bob Eimiller
Democrats are always considered "intellectuals" the media brands them all that way...hell JFK could read a whole novel in 2 hours.. Jimmy Carter was a "Brilliant" Nuclear engineer... He was just surprised when the Soviet Union invaded Afganistan... but he was really BRILLIANT" because, he said "Now I understand..." and that was "Brilliant". Bill Clinton a "BRILLIANT" Rhodes scholar... he never graduated from Oxford ...but....Bubba was so smart he could "COMPARTMENTALIZE" eveything, even his own troubles and still be a "Brilliant" decison maker.. a little aside, the only Rhodes Scholarships awarded tend go to the "Brilliant" far left of the political spectrum because they're obviously the only ones "brilliant" enough to "qualify".
and...HILLARY!!! Now boy is She ever "BRILLIANT"!!! She was on the very top of the list of the 100 smartest lawyers in the WHOLE damn country! Why that bastion for legal excellence..the Rose Law Firm in that Cosmopolitan metropolis in Little Rock would have just been another jerk water firm if it wasn't for her incredible "Brilliance"!
I guess ALL Democrats are "BRILLIANT" ..the only ones that the media aren't raving about being in the "brilliant category are the "crazy" ones like the "would be "BRILLIANT" DOCTOR Howard Dean... but he couldn't win so lets call him crazy instead of "brilliant"...although he IS really "Brilliant too!!
Aren't they all... DemocRATS that is... ask the NY Times or the Boston Globe or the Washington Post..or CBSNBCABCCNNMSNBC...
Remember how dumb Ronald Reagan was.. and Eisenhauer, "what a dummy" all he could do was play golf...and Gerald Ford..why he couldn't walk up and down stairs...he was hit in the head too many times playing football at Michigan...and Dan Quale...what a dummy..He couldn't even spell Potato (or is it Potatoe? hmmm well I'm only a Republican..give me a break) NOW we have that really DUMB Fighter pilot who can't talk properly... They wonder if he even can spell "W" He always lacked "GRAVITAS" didn't he?
The whole thing is CRAZY!!! oops scratch that..that's Howard Dean. Hmmm I wonder if Al Gore really got lost at Camp David? NAH ..the NY Times didn't tell us he did ..so he didn't "...he must be "BRILLIANT" too.. hell, he is supposed to be president... the NY Times says so...all the time, after all he IS a Brilliant Democrat.
Just wait until that "BRILLIANT" yet compassionate "war hero" John F. Kerry showcases his obvious "brilliance" in the presidential campaign. His anti-war protests were "BRILLIANT" and when he debates that dull dumb "W" the whole country will recognize his wonderful "Brilliance". His "Brilliance" will protect us from terrorism, just watch! Forget the notion that "W" has been defeating terrorism on every front. Prove it!!! Prove that the terrorists aren't just taking a rest.... and that's why we haven't had an attack in this country since the two in NY City and the Pentagon 8 months after the "Brilliant" Bill Clinton waged his aggressive war against terrorism... The WTC buildings didn't fall down in 1993 did they... and the USS Cole didn't sink! Did it? What a "Brilliant" administration!
We need to bring "Brilliance" back to the White House and remember John F. Kerry is a Democrat and obviously VERY "Brilliant"!!
Do you understand what I mean??? You do ..don't you?
No, I'm just not smart enough to understand.
Good post, BobEim.
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