Ford Drops Dead

With former President Gerald Ford now dead at the age of 93, I wonder if FORD DROPS DEAD was the headline in the New York Daily News today.

This headline is, after all, a little more accurate and fair than the famous headline at right. Ford never, ever used the phrase "drop dead" when describing New York City -- and this headline probably cost him the 1976 presidential election.

Oh well, what are ya going to do?

My condolences to Betty.

And with 2007 ALMOST here, my wish for the country? A president from the Midwest who came from modest means, whose grandfather wasn't a Senator, whose father wasn't a president, a good and decent man, a man who never really had the ambition to be president, a man who, even after years in politics, lived in a modest middle class home right up until the day he moved into the most famous white house in the world.

I'm talking about Harry Truman. And Gerald Ford. Two midwestern accidental presidents who both left the world on the day after Christmas.