Greenstein on Ford

As an appraisal of President Gerald Ford, this is probably hard to beat. It’s from Fred I. Greenstein, The Presidential Difference¨Leadership Styles from FDR to George W. Bush 122-4 (2d ed. 2004):

Public Communication … He was a plodding speaker, whose rhetorical limitations mad him less able than a Roosevelt, Kennedy, or Reagan to put a good face on political misfortune. Ford also resembled Truman in being verbally accident prone…

Organizational Capacity Ford’s organizational legacy includes his painfully won demonstration that it is no longer feasible to operate an effective presidency without an able and experienced White House chief of staff. There is in general much to be learned form the intelligently structured staff procedures of Ford’s White House. Of particular interest is his Economic Policy Board, which employed the principles of multiple advocacy that served well in Eisenhower’s foreign policy advisory arrangements. A policy mechanism like the EPB would have been useful to a number of Ford’s successors, particularly Carter.

Political Skill Ford’s political skills were those of an experienced legislative pragmatist. …

Vision It might be assumed that the eminently practical Gerald Ford possessed little in the way of political vision. But in fact he had clear, internally consistent policy convictions, particularly in the domestic sphere. ….

Cognitive Style Despite his portrayal on Saturday Night Live as a presidential dullard, Ford brought an open mind and thoughtful intelligence to his responsibilities. Alan Greenspan, who chaired Ford’s Council of Economic Advisers CEA) … [observed] that Ford found it enjoyable to discuss economics with him, even when there was no pending decision that made doing so necessary. …

Emotional Intelligence It is not necessary to depict Ford as a closet intellectual to appreciate the personal strengths he brought to the presidency. He was patently emotionally stable, and his self-esteem was not wrapped up in the fate of his policies. “You never got negative emotional vibrations from the man,” Greenspan recollected, “except when he was mad for reasons that were absolutely objective.” …

[Greenstein's appraisal of the current incumbent is perhaps more charitable than that of most readers of this blog. It would be interesting to know if his 2006 views are any different from those he uttered two years ago.]