“I believed what I was told.” So said Ford, after not knowing Nixon’s perfidy became impossible. The big question about Ford is, What was he told? Not just about Nixon, but about suffering, politics, life, God, etc. A quietly religious man, he forgave Nixon one Sunday morning –- between church and golf –- so that what he termed “healing” could begin. Now we’re told (should we believe it?) in the gently approving psycho-biography that follows the death of any big man -- even Saddam, today, is given credit for his "courage" -- that Ford, ironically, could never fully forgive his father, who beat his mother and abandoned her when young Ford, nee Leslie Lynch King, Jr., was two.
Such is the paradox of Ford...
(cross-posted at Call Me Ishmael)
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