Gerald Ford: A press secretary’s look at leader

There are few situations more challenging than the one Ron Nessen walked into when he became President Gerald Ford’s press secretary in 1974.

The country was still struggling in Vietnam, and the U.S. economy had seen better days. Ford’s decision to pardon Richard Nixon was wildly unpopular, including among reporters.

“Most reporters in those days disagreed with the pardon,” Nessen told Yeas & Nays in an interview Monday. “It was perceived as letting Nixon off the hook.”

Indeed, the Ford White House lost its first press secretary, Jerald terHorst, when he stepped down from the position in opposition to the pardon. “He was viewed as a martyr,” Nessen said. The White House next asked Nessen, then a White House correspondent for NBC, and he accepted.

But Nessen’s move from journalism into politics was viewed by some as essentially crossing the picket line.

“In those days it was not very common to go back and forth across that line,” Nessen said. “It was very rare, and there is a sense today, as well as then, that the media is a sacred calling — a priesthood almost — and when you cross the line, you become one of those suspect politicians.”

From day one, Nessen had to contend with the bitter relationship between the Nixon White House and the press corps that carried over into the Ford administration.

“The relationship was terrible and poisonous,” Nessen said. “And a lot of people wondered, ‘How could you go into government at a time like this?’ ”

But Nessen stayed on the job for the remainder of Ford’s term, even earning a bit of notoriety in the process: He was the first political figure to host “Saturday Night Live.”

With Ford’s recent passing, Nessen has had time to look back and reflect on his time with the president.

“He was a wonderful man, and I’m sorry we lost him,” Nessen said. “He was a calming influence, which the country needed. He wasn’t like Nixon, he wasn’t like Lyndon Baines Johnson, people who spent their entire adult lives lusting after the presidency. And it helped bring the country together.”

Nessen thinks that Ford’s decision to pardon Nixon — a move many think sealed Ford’s doom in the 1976 election — was a rare act of courage. “It’s hard to imagine these days somebody doing something so against their personal interest because they thought it was in the national interest,” Nessen said. “And that’s exactly what he did.”

Edwards already begging for ink

Talk about an unlucky news cycle for newly minted presidential candidate John Edwards. The former senator announced his bid for the White House on Thursday — three days after the death of soul legend James Brown, two days after the death of President Gerald Ford and the day before Saddam Hussein was sent to the gallows. Never mind that it was Christmas week.

A quick check of the NewsRanker on the Huffington Post, which tracks online news and blog mentions, reveals that Edwards had only half of Brown’s mentions, one-third of Ford’s and one-fourth of Hussein’s.

And as of Monday, none of the top 75 blog posts on Blogsnow.com, a Web site which tracks the most popular postings, had anything to do with Edwards, although the list was littered with mentions of Saddam and Ford. This competition for ink even had Edwards’ supporters in a huff, as a debate broke out on his Web site’s open thread.

“Don’t kid yourself; we’re going to get buried tomorrow, and it could have been avoided if we had just waited one week,” a poster called Criggs wrote on Wednesday.

But another poster, named Strategic Thinker, was less concerned. “It’s not like the public is huddling around the television set to catch up on THE LATEST about Gerald Ford’s death,” he wrote. “This was always considered a questionable week for an announcement, because people wondered whether anyone would even be paying any attention.”

Calls to the Edwards campaign were not returned by press time.

Zimmerman brings out the athletes at Chi-Cha

Of all the New Year’s Eve parties going on Sunday night, the scene at Chi-Cha on U Street may have been the most athletic.

Co-hosted by Ryan Zimmerman, the Nationals’ 22-year-old standout third baseman, the invite-only party drew a number of pros, among them Tampa Bay pitcher Jeff Kamrath (Zimmerman’s U.Va. teammate), and a host of D.C. United players, such as Ben Olsen and the recently traded Alecko Eskandarian.

Alas, six of the team’s other standouts, including defender Bobby Boswell and goalkeeper Troy Perkins, couldn’t make it: They had to catch an early plane to San Diego, where they’re taking part in a training camp for the U.S. National Team.

To their credit, many of the jocks didn’t even confine themselves to the various VIP tables set up for them, choosing to mingle with the crowd.

And as you might expect, athletes and beautiful women tend to mix. Just after midnight, Miss D.C. 2006 Kate Michael made an appearance.

Capitol Police: We’re not under attack

Proving that the U.S. Capitol Police has a firm grasp of the obvious, this missive landed in our inbox on Friday from the Capitol Police’s public information officer, as the police force and the military prepared for President Ford’s funeral services: “At 6:30 p.m. this evening in the Upper Senate Park, cannons will be test fired. This will create a loud noise.”

Funny, we didn’t get another alert for the cannon fire at the funeral itself. The cops must have assumed we’d all be shell-shocked by then.

Can D.C.’s smell sell?

A lot of Washington looks good, but does it smell good, too?

Parisian artisan perfumer Blaise Mautin must think so, considering that he’s just designed a custom fragrance for the Park Hyatt Washington “inspired by the soul of the nation’s capital — its people, culture and distinctive natural qualities, ” according to a release.

The scent combines green mandarin, orange, patchouli, violet, rose, sandalwood and musk.

“It is a fragrance of tranquility — a day among the cherry blossoms, a stroll through historic Georgetown or a boat ride on the Potomac,” says the release.

Wait: The Potomac? That’s one smell we may want to avoid.

Speakeasy

“We’re not joined at the hip, but I’m one of the top 10 she calls for advice, and that’s a good thing.”

– Ascendant Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., discussing his relationship with Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in the Hartford Courant