** Decent Man, Decent Presidency **
Gerald Ford was not meant to be president. But when history handed him the job, he handled it with anachronistic decency. In a political era dominated by Nixonian shadows and LBJ’s compulsive meanness, Ford’s restraint was almost radical. “Decent men, when placed in positions of trust, will perform decently.” The book makes the case that Ford did just that.
Ford is less a natural politician and more the high school football star who accidentally stepped into the presidency. That’s not a bad thing. His competence wasn’t theatrical nor his ambition consuming.
When vice presidents become president— Roosevelt, Truman, Ford—the country seems to reveal more of its soul. Accidental ascents, more quirks and less elitism. On the policy front, Ford, like Biden after Afghanistan, was tasked with winding down a long, misbegotten war. In both cases, that burden stifled political momentum. Ford’s alliance with Alan Greenspan—a technocratic pairing whose long shadow arguably shaped monetary policy more than any flashy legislative act. An Ordinary Man also serves as introductory chapters for the foreign policy hawks that then dominated the second Bush administration such as Rumsfeld and Cheney.