THE STATE funeral for Gerald Ford was today in Washington, D.C. He will be buried Wednesday after another funeral in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Nobody had a stranger path to the presidency than Ford, and few faced greater challenges in office.
He served, unelected, as vice president, replacing a man who had committed crimes in office. The president who had chosen Ford had committed his own crimes, and the unelected vice president became the unelected president when Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace.
With no mandate other than the provisional good will and the hopes of the American people, Ford’s task in his brief term was to restore faith in constitutional democracy after years of scandal, lies and official arrogance. He was also left to preside over the unsatisfactory end to a long and bloody war that had cost the lives of 55,000 young Americans and to begin to heal the deep divisions that were the primary legacy of that war.
How well he did that job was apparent this weekend in the large, silent crowd of his fellow citizens who filed past his coffin in the Capitol Rotunda and in the affectionate recollections of his life that occupied the news channels.
In an echo of Ford’s Midwestern values and democratic ideals, his children stood at the doors of the Rotunda, greeting the strangers who had come to pay their respects. It was the human touch of a small-town funeral in the middle of a somber national ceremony.
As Ford lay in state, the old year ended and a new year began. The nation was again embroiled in a war of questionable and ill-defined purpose. As the crowds filed past the coffin, the news reported that the war in Iraq has now claimed the lives of 3,000 U.S. soldiers.
What would Gerald Ford do if he were in the White House now? No one can say. But, from his record, it is possible to say this:
He would do his best.