Still The One 
Dick Cheney speaks for all of chattering America in promoting the glories of our least elected President, Gerald Ford.
His decency? Essential!
“One of the toughest decisions was also one of the earliest –– when he announced the pardon of Richard Nixon. For that he was attacked from every conceivable angle. His judgment, his timing, his intelligence, his motives, his personal integrity –– all of these were called into question. His public approval rating sank dramatically. But the President had made his decision carefully, and he had put the interest of the country first. He kept his head about him, even when it seemed that many others in Washington were losing theirs and blaming it on him.”
One former Ford official ain’t buying it. Jerald terHorst was press secretary to President Ford, and quit a month into Ford’s administration over the Nixon pardon. Reporters have looked him up in the wake of the Scott McClellan story, and terHorst is sticking to his stand.
“I think no man is above the law. You need to make a stand. That’s what citizenship is, in my book.”
Looking For A Few Good Men
Every day is Christmas as Rick Perlstein travels our great nation flogging Nixonland. His new tellings of old anecdotes unfold amidst his amazement at people’s lack of knowledge about Richard Nixon’s sordid roots.
Newest example: Perlstein being asked again and again about king of all media and 1968 Nixon advisor Roger Ailes.
The rotund operative on what he looked for when stacking a Nixon “town meetingâ€:
“A good, mean, Wallaceite cab-driver. Wouldn’t that be great? Some guy to sit there and say, ‘Awright, Mac, what about these niggers?… Ailes walked up and down a nearby taxi stand until he found a cabbie who fit the bill.
That’s the creep who runs America’s vaunted “fair and balanced†network.â€
How to keep up with the Nixonland juggernaut? Perlstein is harnessing the power of social networking! He’s reaching out to all of the saggy demographic who’ve swamped Facebook, who may now enjoy Nixon news accompanied by American Apparel ads! [registration required] 
Get Me Central 
Thrilling new tapes from the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library are released, showing his intense identification with Israel.
All well and good, but tales of American presidents and the plucky Jewish State are beginning to get mushy. We’ve had Harry Truman’s recognition of Israel commemorated, a hideous Kennedy memorial defaces the Jerusalem 
landscape, and Johnson’s Jewish ties are being extended back to his first term in Congress.
With some unfortunate photo placement.
The effect of all this is to extend the current US role as Israeli’s godfather back in time, burying the whole period when France provided nuclear technology and most of their conventional weapons, and of Czechoslovakia’s arms during the War of Independence.
The anachronistic centrality we are seeing starts is beginning to resemble the hemp cultists 
counting past presidents who grew the crop.
All Seeing 
It’s always great to hear from beloved old war criminal Henry Kissinger, and he does not disappoint in the latest “Lunch With the FT.”
A glancing effort comparing his perspective on Iraq:
“If we withdraw from Iraq, the radical elements in all the neighbouring Arab countries will be greatly encouraged.â€
…leads to the triumphant return of the Domino Theory:
“the collapse in Vietnam was partly compensated for by the almost simultaneous and fortuitous disintegration of the Soviet Union.”
The 15 years he thus whisks away may seem but the twinkling of an eye to an elder statesman like Kissinger, but it also has the additional benefit of wiping out his post-Vietnam adventures supporting South Africa’s invasion of Angola and Indonesia’s of East Timor.
Kissinger clearly has something going on with the period, lying about it in his memoirs and as recently as
Gerald Ford’s funeral:
“He sparked the initiative to bring majority rule to southern Africa, a policy that was a major factor in ending colonialism there.”
Kissinger was so desperately blocking dominoes back then that he even pitched Frank Sinatra for help in Africa.
For Some It Never Ends 
Grand Rapids continues to salute former President Gerry Ford, despite the indifference of the Ford family.
No family members plan to attend the premier of a Ford musical tribute, “One of Us, Portrait of a Humble Healer.” This latest slap to local pride comes Friday when the Grand Rapids Symphony premiers the work, accompanied by David “The Tom DeFrank of Pictures” Kennerly’s photographs.
No one from the immediate family attended the 2007 dedication of Gerald R. Ford Middle School.
Longtime local Ford memorialist Marty Allen says the Ford’s desperately await the music’s CD release. Next Fall.
“I know the family wants it done, because they can’t be here,” Allen told the Grand Rapids Press. “And they’re anxious to hear it.”
Allen is Chairman Emeritus of the Library, and cementing his place in history as Ford family stand in. The Ford Library even holds a painting commemorating the historic day when he received the flag 
which had flown at half staff to mark Ford’s death.
