Blanket Agreement 
Yet another thing we can blame on the nation’s most distinguished placeholder, Gerry Ford. After he left office!
Along with doing down Reagan, Nixon, much of the 70s, and the Clintons, Ford in the tell-all “Write It When I’m Gone” lets it be known that he was responsible for the North American Free Trade Agreement.
It happened at a 1993 Clinton sleepover in Colorado.
“Up until that point, President Clinton cared less about NAFTA. He wasn’t interested. I spent most of my time with him promoting NAFTA, urging him to take action, to get going … I honestly can claim full credit for getting him off dead center on NAFTA,” Ford recalled in May 1994. “Now, once he got interested, he did a damn good job. He twisted arms, he browbeat Democrats and he put on a good event in the East Room with Carter, Bush and myself. You know, he’s a helluva salesman.”
And the blessings poured fourth! Ourmostathleticpresident
can take the credit and the blame.
For fashion icon Subcomandante Marcos… 
…but also for the NAFTA Superhighway maps which infest the web
[choose one!] 
The blessings continue today. The new year saw the fall of more barriers to American agriculture crushing Mexican farmers.
“The population working in the primary sector (agriculture, livestock, forestry, hunting, and fishing) fell drastically, from 8.2 million people in 1991 to 6.1 million in 2006… Those working in the primary sector represented 26.8% of the total working population in 1991 but only 14.6% in 2006. According to a study commissioned by the government, the number of agricultural households diminished from 2.3 million in 1992 to 575,000 in 2002.”
Wherever did all those farmers go?
The problem with Gerry’s story is that Clinton endorsed NAFTA before the 1992 election. So never-mind.
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.
/
British Conservatives Look Back in Anger 
It ain’t just disgruntled Labour supporters in Britain who dislike the current US president.
British Conservative blogger Ian Dale has polled his largely Conservative readership on ranking US Presidents since World War II. It’s not a scientific poll, but even these hardened fans of the smack of firm government view Bush the Younger as a walking disaster.
The rankings:
Franklin D Roosevelt +67
Dwight Eisenhower +59
Harry Truman +53
Ronald Reagan +50
John F Kennedy +40
Bill Clinton + 20
George Bush Snr -4
Lyndon Johnson -19
Gerald Ford -20
Jimmy Carter -40
Richard Nixon -42
George W Bush -48
Proof that Conrad Black is not a crank? 
What Was I Thinking? 
Mitt Romney’s Must See Thursday has generated acres of ink.
A passing mention in an opinion piece on the build up recalls an earlier Mormon candidate, Mo Udall, and how he was done in by the sainted Jimmy Carter.
“Religion is neither a qualifier nor a disqualifier for public office, unless you are a Mormon, one of your opponents is a Southern Baptist and you are both running for the presidential nomination of your party…When former governor Jimmy Carter was in tight race with Congressman Morris “Mo” Udall for the Democratic Party’s nomination in 1976, Detroit Mayor Coleman Young, a Carter backer, said to a large audience of black Baptist ministers: “I’m asking you to make a choice between a man from Georgia who fights to let you in his church, and a man from Arizona whose church won’t even let you in the back door.”…Udall, who had left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over its policies toward blacks, called on Carter, a Southern Baptist layman, to repudiate Coleman’s comments. Carter refused and won the Michigan primary.”
Glorious days of old! Carter, the man who split the vote and got Lester Maddox in as Georgia Governor, paired with a man who was at least friendly with the Stalinists to slander one of the more decent politicians Arizona ever produced. 
The Los Angeles Times provides a Chief Executive map of the stars in the wake of Dennis Kucinich’s claim to have seen UFOs.
And a link for what one hopes is the definitive site on the topic: www.presidentialufo.com .
Kucinich joins the chain of greats from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan
Even salt-of-the-earth Gerry Ford would bow to the Alien Interest on occasion:
[choose one!] 
