TOP OF THE TICKET - Ford, Reagan were definitely no bosom buddies
Since sex sells, it's no surprise that much of the initial buzz over Tom DeFrank's new book, "Write It When I'm Gone: Remarkable Off-the-Record Conversations with Gerald R. Ford," has focused on the 38th president's diagnosis of the 42nd president as the Monica Lewinsky scandal exploded.
"He's sick," Jerry Ford said of Bill Clinton. "I'm convinced that Clinton has a sexual addiction. He needs to get help."
The New York Daily News (DeFrank's own newspaper, where he's the longtime D.C. bureau chief) spotlighted the Clinton angle in a story last week.
The book is chock-full of other intriguing material, however, including a fascinating chapter on what DeFrank terms the "uncharacteristic bitterness" that Ford felt toward California's own Ronald Reagan.
To Ford's "dying day" (last Dec. 26), he "blamed Reagan for his 1976 loss to Jimmy Carter," DeFrank writes. It was bad enough that Reagan launched a bid to deny him the Republican presidential nomination. But even worse, after Ford prevailed, Reagan (in Ford's view) barely went through the motions of helping the GOP ticket in the general election.
For Ford, the consummate party man, that was unpardonable. And he remained convinced that with Reagan's help, he would have edged Carter in their close 1976 contest.
Ford didn't think much of Reagan. "He considered Reagan a superficial, disengaged, intellectually lazy showman who didn't do his homework and clung to a naive, unrealistic and essentially dangerous world view."
DeFrank also reveals that Ford continued to harbor White House ambitions after 1976. Said Ford: "I knew I could beat Jimmy Carter; I wasn't sure Ronald Reagan could. I would have liked to run if I could have run without a bitter Reagan-Ford pre-convention battle. But for Ronald Reagan and me to get into another head-to-head confrontation, I was not prepared to do that."
Bush 41 says what?
George H.W. Bush -- the 41st president and father of the 43rd -- has joined the chorus wondering whether some of Hillary Clinton's recent stumbles could dramatically redirect the course of the Democratic presidential race. But as he discusses the matter, in an interview airing on "Fox News Sunday" this weekend, he provides a useful reminder that Clinton isn't the only one who sometimes struggles with an answer.
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