Breaking: Gerald Ford Dies

The former president has been beset with health problems in the last few years; still he managed to be the longest living president in U.S. history. The A.P. reports:

Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon's scandal-shattered White House as the 38th and only unelected president in America's history, has died, his wife, Betty, said Tuesday. He was 93.

Ford had battled pneumonia in January 2006 and underwent two heart treatments — including an angioplasty — in August at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Gerald Ford was the only person to hold both the office of Vice President -- chosen by Nixon to replace the indicted Spiro Agnew -- and President -- succeeding the impeached Richard Nixon -- without being elected to the office.

He was President all of two and a half years, which was the remainder of Nixon's second term. His bid for a full term was thwarted by Jimmy Carter in 1977.

Other than the two separate attempts on his life by two women when he was President and his wife's struggle with alcohol and drug addiction, the only thing that stands out in my mind about Gerald Ford was his unconditional pardon of Richard Nixon.

Although Ford was convinced he did what's best for the nation by pardoning Nixon, the late Hunter S. Thompson who hated Nixon with a passion wrote of Ford:

Not even Gerald Ford, the unhappy ex-president who pardoned Nixon and kept him out of prison, was immune to the evil fallout. Ford, who believes strongly in Heaven and Hell, has told more than one of his celebrity golf partners that I know I will go to hell, because I pardoned Richard Nixon."

Gerald Ford: 38th President of the United States, dead at 93.

More on Ford at americanpresident.org.

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