A real man who didn't sell his true self for power
In December 2004, in his devasting critique of modern media, with its fatal, postmodern divinity, Robert D. Kaplan commented on the character of Gerald Ford:
It may take longer for the realization to seep in that Ford has been our greatest contemporary ex-president. For in an age of mass media - where divinity is dependent upon being noticed by the crowd and being forgotten is the equivalent of excommunication - high character is rightly defined by the willingness to embrace obscurity the moment one relinquishes lofty bureaucratic responsibility.
At the time, I was struck by the depth of the analysis -- and interested in its application to Ford, about whom I knew practically nothing. And yet now, as I compare Ford to say, Jimmy Carter, who keeps surfacing as a media addict, mainlining on the IV drug of annointed visual power, seemingly always with the point of hurting Israel, the wisdom of Kaplan's words is clear.
His words are prophetic, an insightful philosophy of history and human nature. And though he didn't mean it this way, perhaps Kaplan gave the best epitaph that could ever be given a man in a postmodern generation: He had the power to embrace obscurity.
For in an age of mass media - where divinity is dependent upon being noticed by the crowd and being forgotten is the equivalent of excommunication - high character is rightly defined by the willingness to embrace obscurity the moment one relinquishes lofty bureaucratic responsibility.
Gerald Ford was a real man.
