When George W. Bush peered 30 years into the past to pay tribute to former President Ford, who died Tuesday, he saw some familiar images.
A president grappling with the limits of American power, after a helicopter removed the last Americans from a failed war in Saigon.
A president coping with congressional demands for limits on “imperial” presidential powers, particularly in the realm of domestic surveillance and CIA tactics overseas.
And he saw some familiar faces, as well – such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and his own father, George H.W. Bush, all of whom had prominent roles in Ford’s administration – and all of whom took away lessons that have guided the current president.
“Ford’s presidency marked a turning point away from the enormous economic and military strength the United States enjoyed after World War II,” said Ellen Fitzpatrick, a University of New Hampshire historian, citing the limiting effects of the Vietnam War, Watergate, the first oil crisis and more.
Cheney, Rumsfeld and, to a lesser extent, George H.W. Bush – who took over a demoralized CIA during the Ford administration – all came out of the 1970s convinced that Congress had used the unpopular Vietnam War and President Nixon’s Watergate scandal to restrict the powers of the presidency too much.
Cheney, Rumsfeld and the current President Bush have made it their mission to restore presidential power.
But in an echo of the Ford years, Congress has begun questioning the actions of Bush and Vice President Cheney – a process that is expected to accelerate dramatically when Democrats take over the House and Senate leadership next week.
The very tensions that animated the Ford era are visible again: between Republicans and Democrats, between executive branch and legislative branch, between commander in chief and a war-weary nation.
But unlike under Ford, who tried to meet Congress halfway, enacting some reforms on his own, Bush and Cheney are expected to fight back in the name of presidential authority.
