Time Mag's Carney: 'Unpardonable' for Ford to Not Share Disagreement with Iraq War

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On Sunday's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Time magazine Washington Bureau Chief Jay Carney called “unpardonable” the late President Gerald Ford's failure to share with the nation, as well as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld -- who worked for him as Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense, respectfully -- his discomfort with the decision to go to war in Iraq. "Had he spoke out at the time,” Carney sighed, “it would have had an impact.” This Week opened the roundtable with audio of Gerald Ford in a 2004 interview with Bob Woodward: "I don't think I would have ordered the Iraqi war. I can understand the theory of wanting to free people. I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people unless it is directly related to our own national security."

Carney's wife, ABC's Claire Shipman, echoed what she expressed on Thursday's Good Morning America (NewsBusters item by Megan McCormack) as she scolded Ford for cowardice since “he could have made a real difference” if he had spoken out: “If this was a man who was unafraid to take the hit on something like the pardon [of Nixon], this was a man who had the experience of Vietnam, presiding over the end of the Vietnam war, he clearly felt strongly about what was happening in Iraq, he could have made a real difference if he had decided to speak out."

I didn't catch anything about Ford and Iraq on NBC's Meet the Press, Fox News Sunday briefly touched the subject during its panel segment and CBS's Bob Schieffer raised it in his very first question on Face the Nation. He posed it to Tom DeFrank of the New York Daily News, who repeated his reporting that Ford had always been supportive of the war in interviews through eight months ago:

Bob Schieffer: “I want to ask you, because Bob Woodward really surprised a lot of people last week when he said Mr. Ford had told him back in 2004 that he was very opposed to the war in Iraq. He thought it was not justified, according to Bob Woodward, and he had some tough things, also, to say about former Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney, who both worked for President Ford as young men. Were you surprised at that? And did he talk to you about that?”

Tom DeFrank: “Well, I was very surprised about it, Bob, because I had four interviews with Gerald Ford after the war in Iraq began: '03, '04, '05, and then May of '06, as you mentioned. And in every one of those interviews, he told me he supported the war in Iraq. Now, the one, the one instance where my reporting and Bob Woodward's reporting intersects is the question of weapons of mass destruction. President Ford told me in May that he thought it was a big mistake for President Bush to have pegged the invasion of Iraq to the WMD issue. He thought that was a serious mistake. But he never said that he was opposed to the war. Quite the contrary in four different interviews.”

Schieffer: “Did he, what did he say about Vice President Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld?”

DeFrank: “Well, he was very defensive about them, curiously or not. Now, in previous interviews, he, every once in awhile, would shake his head on a couple of things. But he was very supportive, very defensive. As a matter of fact, I asked him whether the famous op-ed piece that he wrote about Rumsfeld after the generals had said Rumsfeld should resign, I asked him whether anybody had asked him to write that article defending Rumsfeld. And I thought he was going to get out of his chair and grab me by the throat. He said, 'Nobody has to tell me to defend Rummy.' So he was very, very supportive of both of them. And I'm such, one of the reasons why I was surprised at what Bob got from him.”

Back to ABC's This Week: Following the audio clip at the start of the December 31 roundtable, the panelists, which in addition to Carney and Shipman included Donna Brazille and Dan Senor, discussed Ford's pardon of President Richard Nixon.

Claire Shipman then observed:

“I guess what I find interesting, George, is the footnote to Ford's career that we saw in his conversations with Bob Woodward, because initially I thought well that seems like classic Ford and he must have felt some sort of pressure in terms of presidential protocol, if you will, not to criticize a sitting President. But at the same time, if this was a man who was unafraid to take the hit on something like the pardon, this was a man who had the experience of Vietnam, presiding over the end of the Vietnam war, he clearly felt strongly about what was happening in Iraq, he could have made a real difference if he had decided to speak out.”

After some comments from Senor about the lack of impact of the revelation of Ford's anti-war view because Ford didn't have the affection conservatives felt for Ronald Reagan, Stephanopoulos prompted Carney to pick up on his wife's point:

“I want to go to Jay to pick up on Claire's point. What struck me about Ford is not only did he not speak up, but according to Woodward, at least, he never spoke to Cheney or Rumsfeld or the President even privately about this.”

Jay Carney: “That is unpardonable and it reminds me also that there were figures -- because had Gerald Ford, whether or not movement conservatives respected him -- had he spoke out at the time, it would have had an impact. There are a number of figures, some of them who were serving in the government at the time who we now learn had serious reservations, Colin Powell comes to mind. You know, the White House was in total fear of Colin Powell. They knew there was one person in the administration who had more rock star popularity even than the President at the time of his highest popularity, if Powell signaled in any way the reservations that we now all know he had, it might have made a difference.”

The broadcast networks on Thursday and Friday, especially ABC and NBC, focused on the comments Ford made to Woodward in 2004 but not published until Thursday, after his death, in a Washington Post article headlined "Ford Disagreed With Bush About Invading Iraq." MRC CyberAlert item on Thursday morning and evening coverage. NewsBusters posting by Michael Rule about Friday morning. My Saturday night posting, “In Funeral Coverage, Fineman Can't Resist Raising Ford's Critical View of Iraq War.”