When Chevy Became Jerry

 I've been thinking a lot about President Gerald R. Ford lately but you don't have to keep me in your thoughts and prayers.

President Ford was the President while I was in high school. Well, he was President most of the time I was in high school. Here's a little history lesson.

As you may remember, there was a President named Richard Nixon.  While he was President, there was a scandal called "Watergate" because the Democratic National Committee headquarters was located there and Nixon sent some toadies to break in and steal all of the Democrats secrets. 

Before you get all interested, there was no sex in it at all.  But there was a lot of lying and a "cover-up."  Since people didn't trust Nixon because he had a fantastic ability to talk out of both sides of his mouth, at the same time, it wasn't long until "Watergate" engulfed the nation. You would not believe what a big deal this was, and this was before social media.

About this same time, Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew (that was his name, honest), had his own problems involving bribes and kickbacks.   Agnew eventually resigned.

So Nixon had to find a new vice president.  That's where Gerald Ford comes in.

Ford was the House Minority Leader and well-liked by both Republicans and Democrats. Nixon chose Ford to replace Agnew.*

Eventually, Nixon had to resign, and on my fifteenth birthday, Ford became President.

There was a brief moment in time when everybody loved good old Jerry Ford. He seemed normal after Johnson and Nixon. That was a definite plus.

The man made his own breakfast. History shows he had English muffins

You couldn't see the other two making English muffins.  Johnson would fire somebody for not making his English muffins, even though he didn't like them.  Nixon would probably set the toaster on fire and deny that the muffins were burnt.

Then came The PARDON. 

 President Ford pardoned President Nixon for the crimes, and the basic Nixoness Nixon did in office.  After the pardon, nothing Ford did was right.      

People started saying Ford wasn't up to the job and he wasn't very bright. Ford was a Yale Law School graduate, but that didn't matter because Lyndon Johnson once said Ford couldn't "walk and chew gum at the same time." (Actually, Johnson said Ford couldn't "fart and chew gum at the same time".  We were still censoring back in the '70s.)

Then Ford, the All-American Center for The Michigan Wolverines, slipped down some steps while exiting Air Force One. 

That was all she wrote because a new television show would soon air that would change comedy.  It was: "NBC's Saturday Night".  We know now it as "Saturday Night Live."

"Saturday Night" featured "The Not Ready For Prime Time Players."  You know their names: Belushi, Ackroyd, Radner, and someone who was Chevy Chase because you were not.

It is hard to describe how big "Saturday Night" was and what a colossal breakout star Chevy Chase became.  Chase had two bits: "Weekend Update," which "Saturday Night Live" still does, and President Ford.

Chase's President Ford was nothing you have ever seen before or since. He didn't try to "imitate" Ford's voice or mannerisms as Dana Carvey did with Dad Bush or Darrell Hammond did with Bill Clinton.  He didn't do anything to "look" like Ford except to do "pratfalls" and generally act like a doofus. 

Imitation was not the highest form of flattery with Chase. He said, "Ford is so inept that the quickest laugh is the cheapest laugh, and the cheapest laugh is the physical joke."  Chase had Ford falling down because he thought Ford was falling flat on his face as President.**

Unlike a certain recent former President, you never would have known that this bothered Ford.  However, in his autobiography, Ford says, "The news coverage was harmful, but even more damaging was the fact that Johnny Carson and Chevy Chase used my ‘missteps’ for their jokes. Their antics — and I’ll admit I laughed at them myself — helped create the public perception of me as a stumbler. And that wasn’t funny."

Ford lost his attempt to become an elected President to Jimmy Carter, a former governor of Georgia.  Chase spent one season at "Saturday Night" and left to become a movie star. He made some good movies, "Caddyshack," "Fletch," "Christmas Vacation," and a boatload of awful movies.

In his old age, Chase is dogged by injuries he suffered doing to the Ford pratfalls and by rumors that he doesn't play well with others. (In fairness to Chase, my son's father-in-law has met Chase and said he was a great guy.)

I started thinking about Ford when I saw President Joe fall up the stairs going into Air Force One.  That story lasted a couple of days. I'm not so sure it should have.  After all, "falls" are a big deal when it comes to the elderly.

There's a couple of reasons for the lack of staying power over Joe's trips.

One, of course, is that Biden has been around forever and a day and is a well-known commodity.  Even though Ford was a well-known person, he was mainly prominent in Washington and Michigan.  Back then, the average American didn't know Ford, and the Ford they knew soon looked like Chevy Chase.

Two, Ford had an (R) beside his name, and Biden has a (D) next to his.

Ford said Poland was free which at the time wasn't free at all. Biden said, "I have never been particularly poor at calculating how to get things done in the United States Senate. So the best way to get something done, if you, if you hold near and dear to you that you like to be able to, anyway,” 

I would think the Biden comment would send up flares to our ever vigilant Fourth Estate.  But it didn't.

Yet.

Biden cannot afford too many more gaffs or trips.  It will soon define him.   Ask President Ford.

 

*After the Kennedy Assassination, the Twenty-fifth Amendment was added to the Constitution allowing a President to chose a new Vice President if the something happened to the old one. This allowed Nixon to select Ford which led to Ford becoming the First President of the United States that was not on an elected ticket. If there was no Twenty-fifth Amendment, the President would have been Speaker Of The House Carl Albert.

**Ford and Chase did meet on several occasions. They seemed to get along pretty well. It is hard to imagine someone, oh, like Trump being civil to Alec Baldwin.  I will add Ford once said "Chevy Chase is a very funny suburb" which is a great put-down.