COMMENTARY | After Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency, one of the greatest and most candid politicians of our time took over in the White House. I'm not talking about Gerald Ford, but instead his wife, the late Betty Ford. Betty passed away Friday at the age of 93. Funeral ceremonies begin Tuesday and will wrap up Thursday, when she is interred beside her late husband at the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Mich.
There was only one first lady I can ever remember being more popular (Jackie Kennedy), but there isn't a single first lady I can remember being more active and efficient. She proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the office of first lady is just as important as many other political posts. I would like to think Ford's pro-choice stance has given credence to the courts and legislatures that have upheld Roe vs. Wade all these years. I always considered Ford one of my favorite public figures of our time. While I usually agreed with her, if you didn't you at least knew what she stood for.
I believe that Ford's legacy will be her advocacy of substance abuse awareness and her work with the Betty Ford Center. As a former drug user myself, Betty Ford's name will always remind me that recovering addicts are capable of anything normal people are. She has single-handedly brought more awareness to the treatment of substance abuse than any other figure in the 20th century. It is rare to see a public figure as vulnerable as Ford became, and it is even rarer to see them candidly shed light on the subject and turn it in to something good. When you consider the fact she followed it through till the end, I would say Betty epitomizes the best qualities of leadership.
Even after death, Betty Ford continues to spread the bipartisan spirit that helped her husband become an effective lawmaker and president. She has asked Cokie Roberts to speak on the hyper-partisan environment in today's government at her funeral, according to the Associated Press. To me, this is the single most important lesson we can take from Ford's life. United we stand, and divided we will fall. I would almost rather see a dictator than the political cock fight that stalls the passage of legislation, attacks opposition in the media and drives our nation further into the ground.
Betty once said "I was an ordinary woman who was called onstage at an extraordinary time. I was no different once I became first lady than I had been before. But, through an accident of history, I had become interesting to people." I don't think I could have put it better myself.
Sources-
Betty Ford Quote Attributed to the New York Times July 9, 2011
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