#Presidential History

[deadpresidents]

I’m curious about the friendship between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter (and presidential friendships in general,) I’d like to know what that looked like for them. Would they go and do things together or was it just a few phone calls a year?

Their relationship is really interesting because during the 1976 campaign and in the years right afterward, Ford and Carter genuinely did not like each other. It wasn't a normal, opponent vs. opponent rivalry, either. They straight-up disliked one another, and that was extremely unusual for Gerald Ford, who got along with practically everybody he met throughout his life, rarely had bad things to say about other people, and was almost physically incapable of being unkind to others, no matter what side of the political spectrum they belonged to.

What changed was when President Reagan sent all the living former Presidents -- Nixon, Ford, and Carter -- to Cairo in 1981 to attend Anwar Sadat's funeral following Sadat's assassination. The three former Presidents all flew together on one of the planes normally used as Air Force One, and there was some tension at the beginning, but the person who broke the ice, oddly enough, ended up being Richard Nixon. Ford then suggested that the former Presidents should drop all formalities and just refer to one another as Dick, Jerry, and Jimmy. As Ford remembered, "I guess we figured we were gonna be in a plane together forty hours, more or less, and in order to be pleasant, it was a good idea to just wipe the slate clean, which we did." Ford and Carter eventually started bonding, partly over the fact that Ronald Reagan was a major reason why each of them ultimately lost their respective bids for re-election.

At the time, Carter was having trouble building his Presidential Library, and he asked Ford for some advice since Ford had just recently opened his library. When Carter mentioned he was having some issues raising money for the library, Ford offered to come down and appear at fundraisers for him, and asked Carter to return the favor and visit the Ford Library for an event.

As Thomas M. DeFrank writes in his 2007 book, Write It When I'm Gone: Remarkable Off-the-Record Conversations With Gerald R. Ford (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO):

"Carter accepted, triggering a Jimmy-Jerry tag team match extending over several years. These back-scratching appearances didn't convert them into friends, but the relationship was notably friendlier. They began staying in regular contact, talking on the phone, and exchanging birthday greetings. Their contacts were sufficiently public that some of Ford's closest political allies grumbled that he was spending altogether too much time with Carter -- not unlike similar complaints from [George H.W.] Bush 41 partisans today that he hangs around Bill Clinton too much. Ford brushed off the complaints. Beyond their shared practical interests in Presidential Libraries, another unifying bond was at play. Both ex-Presidents had strong reasons not to like Ronald Reagan, which helped cement their ties even though neither one would ever admit it publicly. To one old Ford friend, the calculation was simple: 'Once you did something for his library or museum, you were a friend for life.'"

As they got older, Ford and Carter would sometimes make joint appearances at Presidential Libraries or universities, or events for important causes, and they even wrote a joint op-ed during the Monica Lewinsky scandal urging Congress to censure President Clinton instead of impeaching him. They felt it was a bad precedent (which it has clearly turned out to be) and would be bad for the country. Unlike Ford, Jimmy Carter wasn't very easy-going or personable, so there were times when their friendship would get a little frayed. Ford once told a friend, "Well, you know Jimmy. He can be a real pain in the ass, but we get along."

Eventually, they promised one another that they would deliver the eulogy if the other former President died first. President Ford died first, on December 26, 2006, and Carter attended every event during the several days of ceremonies, from Ford's lying in state at the U.S. Capitol, to the national funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral, and traveled with Ford's family and the former President's remains to Ford's hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. At the church service in Grand Rapids, Carter delivered his eulogy, and also attended the private interment service when Ford was buried as at his Presidential Library. In his eulogy, Carter repeated the gracious first words he had said when delivering his Inaugural Address on the day he took over the White House from Ford in 1977, "For myself and for my nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land." It was a remarkable relationship between two former Presidents who, again, genuinely disliked one another for quite some time.

[usnatarchives]

Franklin D. Roosevelt (top center) with his Groton baseball team, ca. 1898. (Franklin D. Roosevelt Library).

View the original photo in our National Archives Catalog: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/196066384

[team-of-rivals]

Guess who’s finally posting on here⁉️🔥

[god-breast-america]

Update im a genius

[diemelusine]

Hand-tinted photograph of Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1903) by Frances Benjamin Johnston. Library of Congress.

[trivia-polls-daily]

No cheating, please! Answer the trivia question to the best of your ability, then check below the cut! Please do not give away answers in comments or tags!

Answer below:

The most common first name among US Presidents is James, at six uses.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124390/us-presidents-names/

[todaysdocument]

Photograph of President William Jefferson Clinton Participating in a Briefing on Kosovo

Collection WJC-WHPO: Photographs of the White House Photograph Office (Clinton Administration)Series: Photographs Relating to the Clinton Administration

Original caption: This item is a photograph of President William Jefferson Clinton participating in a briefing on Kosovo. Participants include Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, William Cohen, George Tenet, Sandy Berger, John Podesta, Jim Steinberg, and General Henry Shelton.

The briefing is taking place in the Oval Office.  President Clinton sits in an armchair.  His advisors sit on couches and other chairs.  Madeleine Albright in a red dress is the only woman present.  Three advisors wear military uniforms, the rest are in suits.  Many hold papers or pads on their laps and are taking notes.  The presidential seal is visible on the blue rug.

[loudxsafari]

“A love poem”

By: George Washington

From your bright sparkling Eyes, I was undone;

Rays, you have, more transparent than the sun,

Amidst its glory in the rising Day,

None can you equal in your bright array;

Constant in your calm and unspotted Mind;

Equal to all, but will to none Prove kind,

So knowing, seldom one so Young, you'l Find

Ah! woe's me that I should Love and conceal,

Long have I wish'd, but never dare reveal,

Even though severely Loves Pains I feel;

Xerxes that great, was't free from Cupids Dart,

And all the greatest Heroes, felt the smart.

[taraross-1787]

This Day in History: Martha Jefferson

On this day in 1748, Martha Wayles, future wife of Thomas Jefferson, is born.

Martha “Patty” Wayles Skelton Jefferson is a bit of a mystery! We don’t even have a portrait of her, although the attached silhouette is believed to be hers. Jefferson burned all of their correspondence after her death. By all accounts, though, the two were deeply in love.

Patty was a young and wealthy widow when the two married on New Year’s Day in 1772. Their first child was born 8 months and 26 days after their wedding. They named her Martha, and they called her “Patsy.” Mrs. Jefferson would have six total children over the course of her ten year marriage to Jefferson. Only two would live to adulthood.

FULL STORY: http://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-martha-jefferson

[tompoose]

I had always thought of James Garfield as a broad man, not exactly plump, but full and hearty. I had known that his long period of wasting away had been what killed him, but upon visiting the James A. Garfield National Historic Site in Mentor, Ohio, I saw his death mask. I was shocked to see how much of him was gone.

[foxy-kitsune-fox]

Vote all red (Republican) on ballot in the federal, house, senate, district, major, governor, not blue (Democrat), Election Day. Donald Trump And JD Vance 2024.

~ Baron Tremayne Caple A.K.A. Foxy Fox/Foxy Kitsune Fox/Fox Man/Fox King/King Fox/Gemini Man/Autism Man/Rainbow Man Is A Metrosexual/God Of Autism/King Of Autism/God Of Asperger/King Of Asperger 🦊

[deadpresidents]

"It hurt to lose to Ronald Reagan. But after the election, I tried to make the transition as smooth as possible. Later, from my experience in trying to brief him on matters of supreme importance, I was very disturbed at his lack of interest. The issues were the 15 or 20 most important subjects that I as President could possibly pass on to him. His only reaction of substance was to express admiration for the political circumstances in South Korea that let President Park close all the colleges and draft all the demonstrators. That was the only issue on which he came alive."

-- Former President Jimmy Carter, on losing the 1980 election and the transition leading to the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, interview with TIME Magazine, October 11, 1982.

[racefortheironthrone]

How accurate was Andrew Jackson’s “People’s President” moniker? Half my family lives in Eastern Oklahoma due to the Indian Removal Act.

So back in the 1940s, Andrew Jackson was seen as a genuinely populist figure - going to war with the Bank, inviting ordinary people into the White House, going after Calhoun and the Nullificationists, etc. See Arthur Schlesinger Jr's The Age of Jackson for this account by people who had been New Deal Democrats in the 1930s and were looking for their historical origins.

And then around 20 years later, a new generation of historians pointed out that Jackson's populism was entirely for the benefit of white people, which meant bloody oppression for the First Nations and a commitment to upholding slavery. To a new generation of historians, therefore the Jefferson-Jackson Democratic Republicans became seen not as a libertarian political party but a party of white supremacy.

This in turn would give rise to a new analysis of Jackson's political opponents who wanted a more active government in the economy aimed at broad-based debelopment, and who however unsteadily did speak out on behalf of the Cherokee or the escaped slave.

[team-of-rivals]

probably a terrible time to mention that i was listening to a certain sondheim flop musical earlier today…

[god-breast-america]

I think about this tweet so much how did op get them confused

[tomorrowusa]

Presidential historian Michael Beschloss places the Trump hush money trial in historical context with specific reference to Richard Nixon's legal problems.

A turning point for Nixon was when former White House counsel John W. Dean testified against him at the Senate Watergate hearings in 1973. Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer, is currently testifying against his old boss in open court in New York.