My Sweet Ford

the highway scribe is back (sort of) and let's be clear; a blogger could get used to not blogging, which is, you know, free work.

But enough anarcho-syndical carping. the scribe has a couple of things to get off his chest.

One is blowing the whistle on the Gerald R. Ford love-fest.

Jeezus, and no disrespect, but Ford's burial is lasting longer than his time in office.

Let's be frank (and joe) here, "decency" is a very nice quality, but it doesn't make for either a great presidency nor amount to much of a legacy.

And, of course, the endless focus on this particular, apolitical quality is merely a reflection on the Bush administration's Washington, where decency is in short supply.

the scribe was alive during Gerald Ford's brief reign and can only suspect the '70s nostalgia mildly affecting him, is the same force moving everybody else in this unexpected Ford-fest.

But looking back, it must be said, no such sentiment surrounded this decent man at the time.

There was nothing remarkable about his administration other than the subsequent ascent of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, and the then-famous WIN (Whip Inflation Now!) buttons.

People were furious over Ford's pardon of Nixon. The country, at the time, did not need the "healing" everyone is so busy crediting the ex-president with now.

Again, that's a reflection on our own times in which a little niceness would be nice.

What the country needed then was answers and accountability and a complete laying out on the table of Nixon's fascistic crimes.

Why?

SO THAT THEY DIDN'T HAPPEN AGAIN!

But the country did not get that, and such things did happen again under w.'s now forlorn and criminal regime.

In other words, we're judging Ford through the lens of our current situation, and he looks a lot better, when really, he was guilty of having betrayed the country's principles and responsible for leading us toward the diminished situation we find ourselves in now.

Meantime, the Democrats are set to take power and do a little healing of their own.

Jonathan Weisman's piece in this morning's "Washington Post" talks about pressure from liberal activists on the incoming Dems to be different than the slobs turned out of office in November.

In the scribe's post-election analysis entitled "Isis Left," it was noted that as much needed to be undone, as done, and there is some of that going on as Weisman notes:

"...the newly sworn-in Democratic Congress will immediately begin work on new ethics rules [disposed of by Tom Delay and Co.], the reinstitution of federal deficit controls and new policies designed to increase civility in House proceedings."

"Isis Left" also noted how the election meant, "No more votes for torture. No more votes for domestic spying. No more votes for 'Christian' judges. No more wars without provocation. No more medieval projects launched with an okay from the man upstairs."

But that was just the scribe projecting his own values of peace, democracy, and equality upon that tricky, hoary old vat of vaseline known as the Democratic Party.

Here's Weisman's nut paragraph:

"Nowhere in the Democrats consensus-driven agenda is legislation revisiting last year's establishment of military tribunals and suspending legal rights for suspected terrorists. Nor is there a revision of the civil liberties provisions of the USA Patriot Act, a measure curbing warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency or an aggressive confrontation of the president on his Iraq war policies."

Not one to typically follow the herd, highwayscribery would still like itself to be counted amongst those activists pushing for these things.

Finally, in the toot-your-own horn category, highwayscribery focuses on another "Washington Post" piece running today focusing on the fact Barack Obama admitted to cocaine snurfing in his first memoir, "Dreams of My Father."

Lois Romano's article, entitled "Effects of Obama's Candor Remain To Be Seen," takes on the issue.

So what?

Well, you read it here first - back in June (5) - when highwayscribery did one of its patented "book reports" on "Dreams of My Father" and noted:

"Obama’s rise to prominence represents something of a bellwether in less than obvious ways. Sure, he’s one of only a handful of blacks ever to serve in the U.S. Senate, but in this story he weaves the consumption of marijuana, alcohol and even cocaine into the fabric without using overly bright colors and without trying to sugar-coat it either.

"He plays basketball, he 'adopts' in his own parlance an identity from those being offered-up by the pop culture of the 1980s - the years of his flaming youth. And now he’s a senator and all of that without having had to live like a Mormon."

highwayscribery...doing your thinking for you.