Gerald Ford's Failure of Nerve

Via the Huffington Post

Compared with Nixon and the Republicans who followed him, Gerald Ford looks like the embodiment of Main Street decency and prudence. Ford's judgment seems even better when we learn that he told Bob Woodward that the Iraq war was "a big mistake," concluding, "I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security." Ford's words should give strength to all of us who've questioned the war and were attacked as unpatriotic in the process.
They reflect well on his common-sense willingness to acknowledge discomforting truths. But because he'd told Woodward to keep the interview private until after his death, they don't represent courage, but in fact a failure of nerve.

Think of the impact had Ford spoken out, on the record, to question the war in July 2004, when he conducted the interview with Woodward. Or acknowledged that he was "dumbfounded" when Bush initiated his domestic surveillance program. Had Ford publicly questioned the war, it would have opened up room for others to dissent, across political lines, at a time when the administration and its media allies were calling dissenters "allies of terrorism" for speaking up. It would have made possible a real discussion about the cost of our actions and the options available, when media gatekeepers were largely still insisting that the war was justified and saying it was being won. Had Ford voiced his reservations aloud, it might even have shifted the 2004 elections, at least in some of the Senate races that Democrats lost by the smallest of margins after being baited for not falling in line. Ford might well have taken some political heat for raising his reservations, but as a Republican ex-president he'd have been hard to attack, and any challenges would have let him elaborate further on his principles and conclusions.

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