A Greenfield of Manure Covering President Ford

“My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over” -President Gerald Ford Pardon me? The nightmare is over? What a statesmen he was, the ever-stumbling “Yes Man” from Michigan. In death, Ford has…according to the countless media-hacked paeans and odes…become President Everyman. A “sound man” who came into the Oval Office during a constitutional crisis and soothed the savage beast of justice in favor of national reconciliation. That’s the take Media Uber-Hack Jeff Greenfield gave those unfortunates who happened to be watching CNN last night. Greenfield positioned himself over the years as a font of historically nuanced perspectives on American politics. He’s had a long and, doubtless, remunerative career. The manure he was spreading last night about the vapid Presidency of Gerald Ford is a fairly strong smelling indication of how he achieved that punditcratic position of commentating wise guy. Greenfield’s argument was that, at a time of great crisis and public unrest regarding President Nixon, his pardon before the fact kept America from descending into the world of “Banana Republics” by having a President face criminal charges. Ford saved the integrity of the Highest Office. Ford kept America from losing its luster. And Greenfield is keeping us from the truth. From truth and justice. I guess that’s the American Way, because the media has failed over and over again since 1963 to ask questions that might expose to the light of day the cloak and dagger of darkness that has enveloped the Presidency. It is fitting that Greenfield points to Ford’s brave and worthy decision to save America from the messy business of prosecuting criminal activities by a high-ranking government official. Watergate wasn’t the first event that Ford approached with those paternalistic preconceptions. Ford served on the Warren Commission and, in keeping with Greenfield’s axiom, did his part to keep unseemly details from the American people. A quintessential Yes Man, Ford’s participation in the Commission presaged the pardon of Tricky Dick. When high crimes and misdemeanors of constitutional proportions spill over into average Americans’ lives, the Ruling Class must protect the fragile fabric of America…even if it means covering up crimes, driving down dead-end inquiries and allowing criminal acts to go unpunished. That’s where our friends in journalism step in. As with so many scandals over the last forty-plus years, journalists and blowhards like Greenfield have done there part to preserve American innocence, both socially and criminally. Since JFK’s assassination, the media has bent over backwards to ignore evidence, to ask questions and to listen to the public they serve. While over 80% of Americans consistently poll year after year expressing their belief that the “lone assassin-magic bullet” theory is wrong, media hacks like Greenfield keep spoon feeding us elitist crap discounting any foolish conspiracy theories. They keep giving us black and white snapshots of our collective past. They keep airbrushing out anything that would destabilize The System that sustains them and the Ruling Class they feed off like lampreys. They determine the mainstream, channeling it away from any destabilizing banks…calming any uneasy eddies. In the case of JFK’s assassination, it was the ultimate nexus of “journalists” and “leaders” setting the scene. They all bought into the argument that America was teetering on the brink; that the murder of President Kennedy could lead back to Castro and, therefore, another World War. It was all set against the terrible backdrop of the Red Menace and nuclear holocaust But what it did was let loose decades of criminality. The Bay of Pigs crowd pops up over and over again. They pop up in murder of JFK. Of RFK. And, in a beautiful symmetry of menacing irony, in Watergate. Yes, many of the Plumbers were Bay of Pigs vets. When Ford took over, he knew the score. Keep the scandal out of the courts and out of politics. Americans will move on, with journalists driving the moving truck. Ford inserted the Bush team…both Poppy’s and W’s…into the Executive Branch and set in motion much of what we’ve experienced since. Jim Baker, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld…all came of age under Ford. Poppy was Chair of the Republican National Committee, managing the Watergate scandal with his Texas friend and Democratic counterpart Bob Strauss. They…the nefarious and seemingly faceless “They”…took it upon themselves to save us from the mucky process of dredging up the deepest parts of the Watergate scandal. Ford came in and did what he did best…he complied. He rubber-stamped the decision to protect us from a longer nightmare. He put in place Poppy’s men and they kept the darker parts of Watergate from flowing over onto the public. They, along with a complicit style of journalism, made sure the mainstream didn’t drown the Bay of Pigs crowd or upset the ship of state. So, Greenfield is right. Coming from his perspective as a veteran commentator on politics, Jeff’s take on Ford is fitting. He, along with his colleagues, have bought into The System and pledged allegiance to a flagging desire to ask tough questions and dig up skeletons. The October Surprise, Iran-Contra, CIA drug trafficking, Iraqgate, the Savings and Loan Scandal, the BCCI Scandal…all those stories have been half-told by half-assed “journalists” like Greenfield. The politicians they abet have persisted. The Executive Branch is filled with Iran-Contra vets. It is any surprise that Ford’s inner circle has been in power over and over again? The Iraq War, and the hundreds of thousands of casualties and the hundreds of billons of dollars that came with it, was just the latest nexus of “journalists” and “leaders” setting the scene. No real questions were asked. We were treated once again to the team assembled under Ford and the journalists who dare not bite the hand that feeds them. They kept us sheltered from the truth. And there is little being done to explore the criminality of the last six years, or to bring to justice those who perpetrated those high crimes and misdemeanors. Bush the 41st, in a Ford-like move, issued pardons to many of the Iran-Contra crowd. And many came back into the Executive Branch under Bush the 43rd…with mainstream journalism sitting idly by as criminals, pardons be damned, slid right back into the comfortable confines of The System. Greenfield praised Ford. And he should, because the symbiosis between the Ruling Class and journalism has sustained both through even the most troubling of scandals and constitutional crises. Wake up, people…our long national nightmare never ended.

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