A conservative mourns Ford

This column by conservative commentator Bruce Bartlett is well worth a read:

Ford’s Lost Legacy

With the passing of Gerald Ford, we have lost more than a former president who served the nation honorably in trying times. The Republican Party has also lost its last link to a tradition it once embraced. Gone now is any trace of the solid Midwestern ethics that Ford personified — things like not spending more than you take in, being skeptical about the use of force, and not imposing one’s values on others.

Gone also is any trace of the Western-style libertarianism that Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan exemplified. Instead, we now have a Republican Party that has imposed vast financial costs on future generations just to win a few votes today, that is hasty and imprudent in the use of force, and that takes a virtually puritanical approach to imposing on everyone the views of evangelical Christians....

I didn't agree with every move Ford made, by any means, but I was struck, while watching the tributes to him following his death, by how he appears a veritable giant -- intellectually, morally, emotionally -- compared to the numbskulls and thugs who are currently in power.

That hold on power finally gets loosened tomorrow, when the Democrats take over the House and Senate. Here's hoping that'll prove to be the first step back toward sanity and a return to an America we can be proud of.