Ghost Walker 
Only a year ago, America’s New Years Celebrations were sandwiched around a very different send-off, America’s Gerald Ford
.
California
Capitol Hill
National Cathedral
Michigan
If you slept through it all, were under a rock, or had better things to do, endless retrospectives are available via the internets. 
Or order CSPAN’s compilation tape for $24.95.
Lessons were offered and conclusions drawn.
Henry Kissinger offered a spectacularly rosie and utterly false portrait of Ford’s alignment with South Africa in the 70s. Dick Cheney watched too much television coverage and learned that Ford was a spirited amalgam of Truman, Roosevelt and Reagan on their good days.
And did you know, he was “our most athletic President“?
Ford memorializing rumbles along, albeit at a slower pace then the Reagan juggernaut. Michigan hopes to dump a long-time Capitol Hill statue to make room for Ford, and in real estate Gerry Ford brings the swank. The long time Alexandria Virginia resident and beloved deceased President will be honored by a “President Ford Lane” and a park in an exciting new “mega mansion” development. But there’s more. The park is to be marked by “appropriate signage, historical and informational plaque, and, hopefully, a three dimensional statue or bust of President Ford.”
His Place in History [or at least in Irbid] 
Too soon to tell if it’s the much hoped for Saddam Hussein Presidential Library, but his fans certainly put on a show for his death anniversary.
Jeremy Blachman explores what the hell is up with Presidential Libraries, as he writes about his recent Reagan Library visit, and the abiding strangeness of the place.
“The Ronald Reagan museum is a waste of a museum. Regardless of what someone thinks about Ronald Reagan, it’s pretty hard to argue with the idea that there is a compelling story that his museum should be able to tell …Reagan had eight years in office… And they totally wasted the chance to do anything even remotely interesting, educational, relevant, or thoughtful with the Reagan museum… the biggest exhibit in the museum — and the one you’re channeled to right when you enter! — is a collection of Nancy Reagan’s gowns, each one carefully placed on a mannequin and accompanied by a placard that tells you the designer and when Nancy wore it. “Lunch with friends, November 14, 2002.” …There’s more space devoted to the dresses than to Reagan’s presidency. Next came a short video about the museum. About Reagan? No, not really. About the location and size of the museum, and the restaurant in the back and the piece of the real Berlin Wall we could find in the courtyard… The only thing lingered on? A whole bunch of display cases of his love letters to Nancy…I know he wrote a whole bunch of radio addresses in the 4 years before he ran for President, but those aren’t mentioned. Neither are, oh, I don’t know, any presidential speeches he may have had a hand in, or at least that he delivered even if he didn’t write them…it appears that the only thing he ever wrote, in all his life, were love letters to Nancy…and then you get to the final exhibit — the life of Nancy. …and then there’s Reagan’s tomb, and a lonely piece of the Berlin Wall outside (as opposed to the two replica wall pieces inside, which make no sense — why not just bring the real one inside, and fit it into the exhibit)…it just made me angry that it was such a missed opportunity to be interesting. .. Can’t you do more than show Nancy’s dresses? Can’t you make an intelligent, interesting museum out of what’s out there? Apparently not.”
Second Time, Farce 
Such was Gerry Ford’s fate that even his bumbling would-be assassins were viewed as indicative of the Administration’s general air of haplessness.
Churchill wrote of the thrill of being fired upon without result. Ford was twice lucky. Two would be slay-gals went gunning for him, and only managed to get off one [bad] shot between them.
Errant shooter Sara Jane Moore had the requisite triple name, but lacked the accuracy America had come to expect from lone, crazed assassins.
Like the better class of killer, Moore had an FBI connection, informing the Bureau on the San Francisco Bay area radical milieu in the wake of the psychotic Symbionese Liberation Army actions of the mid 70s . 
No patsy claim though – she owned up to it all. And now she is out.
We’ll always have Carter comutee and Clinton pardonee Patty Hearst 
to kick around though.
/
The Source of Our Troubles 
The campaign t-shirt is not one of the higher art forms. For that matter it’s not one of the higher forms of campaigning. But they get made and worn nevertheless.
Not always, though. Past Presidential candidates may have been restrained by lack of ready access to the mills of Asia, or the knowledge that few of their supporters would look attractive in the items. But by harnessing the power of the web, some visionaries have dared to dream the dream of a William Howard Taft t-shirt. 
The Des Moines Register calls our attention to retropresident.com, source 
of this salute to an earlier, less visibly sweaty era.
Neil Swanson launched the notion.
“What if someone could have a Truman or FDR or Nixon T-shirt, just like the vintage sports shirts and hats? They didn’t have T-shirts back in the day, obviously, so why not create some?”
Lesser lights get their moment as well, although reviving Dick Gephardt’s Chrysler star logo 
isn’t likely to make anyone misty for what might have been. The best graphics are Republican –
Alf Landon 
…and Richard Nixon. 
The overall lesson is relief that most of these sorry graphics did not get wider exposure “back in the day.” And the certain knowledge that Obama’s small-town-electric-co-op looking logo 
has company in blandness.
Michigan 
