In a National Press Club speech recently, former President Gerald Ford derided the Republican leaders of Congress and claimed that it was “extreme right wing” positions on abortion and gun rights that brought defeat for the GOP in the last two presidential elections.

Reaction among the Washington intelligentsia was predictable. “Jerry Ford came through town last week, trailing common sense and goodwill as usual,” trilled the Washington Post’s David Broder. “I was struck by the way candor compels this senior citizen to speak out against much of what is happening in our politics.”

One might suspect that the elderly Mr. Ford was simply having a “senior moment.” On the other hand, it could be that indeed, as Lyndon Johnson once said, Jerry Ford had played too much football without a helmet. Never mind. Mr. Ford has earned the respect of liberals like Mr. Broder the Washington way – by selling out the Republican Party. This is how a Republican “grows” in the nation’s capital.

Given Mr. Ford’s 0-1 record in national elections and his lifelong failure to bring a GOP majority to the House, conservatives need not take his criticism all that seriously. But rarely have we seen this disdain for mainstream conservative values spoken by any Republican, much less one who held the nation’s highest office, albeit accidentally.

Mr. Ford, who decided that his major domestic break with Richard Nixon would be to invite the national media into the White House to watch him make toast, can hardly be expected to understand what real leadership is all about.

Is opposing photo-op gun-control legislation that means nothing in our communities and streets “extreme right wing” behavior? Is standing up for the sanctity of innocent human life a “hard right” issue? This is the litany of the same liberal Democrats who ridiculed Mr. Ford out of office. Twenty-three years later, Jerry Ford still doesn’t get it: It’s not the conservatives he should be worried about; it is the liberals who truly want to reshape America with their larger master plan.

In his speech, Mr. Ford castigated former Speaker Newt Gingrich for creating a congressional atmosphere of alleged incivility and “clash ing with Clinton and the Democrats pretty strongly.” The former president said not a word about the Clinton-Gore administration’s political aggression on this front (lying over Medicare, school lunches, the environment and Social Security – not to mention political “ethnic cleansing” directed against any and all opponents and critics – just ask George Stephanopoulos). Instead, Mr. Ford elected to lay all the blame at the feet of Mr. Gingrich and his lieutenants. Once again, for Jerry Ford, the liberals are blameless and the conservatives are the villains. “They had those terrible, terrible days when the government was shut down. It was like Vietnam and Watergate.” When a former president makes silly statements like this, one wonders how the country survived his term of office.

Ah, for the good old days when “Tip O’Neill and I as majority and minority leaders, respectively used to fight like cats and dogs on the floor of the House and then go out and have a beer.” Of course the now-deceased Tip O’Neill could afford to be cordial to Mr. Ford. He beat him every day on the House floor like a rented mule.

Mr. Ford praised Texas Gov. George W. Bush for trying to be “a little more flexible than his father was on a few issues,” including abortion. That’s highly ironic inasmuch as conservatives consider the 1991 budget agreement evidence that the elder Mr. Bush was far too flexible in abandoning his solemn promise of “Read my lips -no new taxes.”

Suffice to say conservatives are not Gerald Ford fans. They have precious little to thank him for except that his bumbling presidency led to four years of Jimmy Carter. And that, coupled with the optimism and powerful force of Ronald Reagan’s ideas and ideals, ensured the election of a leader unafraid to embrace the winning conservative principles that Jerry Ford, even today, can’t fathom. Jerry Ford fell years ago – and he still can’t get up. Or get it.

Craig Shirley is a GOP consultant.

LOAD-DATE: July 9, 1999

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

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