The GAW In Action

The Great American Whitewash remains one of the more effective propaganda tools used by those who write the history. If a major event or serious crime can be played down or simply omitted from an official account, then it most certainly will, while the more "uplifting" aspects of the narrative are expanded and polished to a clean shine. This tactic doesn't always work, and sometimes reality seeps through. But for the most part, the GAW is a reliable way to make our history appear superior to other nations. Or as Archie Bunker once put it in a slightly different context, it's what "separates the US of A from the red chinks and all those other losers."

The GAW can be used for just about anything; but when a former statesman, or better still, an ex-president dies, then the GAW is wrapped in sparkling stars and stripes and thrust at the reader/viewer with the subtlety of a 40 car pile-up. We saw this when Nixon passed, then Reagan. And now that Gerald Ford has died, we see it again -- in one instance, through pure political revisionism; and in another case, complete omission.

Before I get to those two examples, I must comment on a passage from the New York Times obit, which shows to those who are awake and sane that the Times is anything but a left-wing newspaper. Under the title "Traditional Values," we read, "The home in which the future president was brought up, along with his three stepbrothers, was imbued with the values of family loyalty, thrift and patriotism . . . On May Day one year, Mr. Ford and other students at South High saw another group of youths painting anti-American slogans on the steps leading to the school building. The group Mr. Ford was in, mostly football players, dashed over, grabbed the paint cans and, by one account, splashed the paint on the others."

Ha ha! Young Jerry clearly had the right instincts when encountering speech he didn't like, a "traditional value" that the Times apparently endorses. But that was just a teaser, a bit of biographical fluff to help set the overall tone. For the Times, and pretty much every other Ford obit I've read, the 38th president's true patriotic glory came when he pardoned Richard Nixon, after Nixon fled to San Clemente in order to avoid certain impeachment and criminal prosecution. At the time, there was some editorial grumbling, and leading Dems like Ted Kennedy denounced Ford's choreographed move. But for the most part, the owners of the country and their stenographers praised Ford for ending the "national nightmare" of Watergate and keeping their profitable system intact, because, you see, America couldn't afford to actually place a president in the dock and try him for various state crimes. Even Ted Kennedy came around to this view, which the obit writers are flagging to show bi-partisan appreciation for Ford's inspired and necessary act. When everyone in the political class agrees to overlook or push aside crimes that might call the whole system into question, it proves that the system "works," and self-congratulation is the order of the day. (Some contemporary libloggers buy into this view as well, thus proving their political "rationality.")

The other legacy that Ford left behind is of course his backing and bankrolling of Indonesia's invasion and dismemberment of East Timor. On the eve of this invasion, Ford and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were in Jakarta, dining with the murderous Indonesian General Haji Mohammad Suharto, doubtless discussing what was to come. After all, over 90% of Indonesia's weaponry was supplied by the U.S., and there is simply no way that Suharto could have launched that invasion without Ford and Kissinger's approval. Suharto did have the good manners to wait until his imperial sponsors had left Indonesian airspace before ordering the assault, which commenced on December 7, 1975. Within a few years, the Indonesian military and its proxies had slaughtered over 200,000 Timorese out of a population of 700,000 -- about a third of the overall Timorese population. Think about those numbers for a moment. Try to imagine something similar happening in the U.S. For all of our national anguish and anger over what happened on 9/11, East Timor endured countless 9/11s on a steady basis. We paid for it and provided cover and excuses for it. And it was Gerald Ford's administration that gave Suharto the green light and the means to do the grisly job.

Now, a civilized country that dealt with its history honestly would mention the above in any overview of that period. And had Gerald Ford been, say, a Chinese premier who ordered a client army to wipe out a third of a smaller country's population, I'm guessing that would be mentioned in American news outlets upon his death. But being the U.S. president who ended a "national nightmare," Ford's direct hand in mass murder is completely ignored. I have yet to find any mainstream mention of this, much less any critical words from libloggers, content to tap "Gerald Ford RIP" and nothing more. If any doubt remains in you about the utter depravity of our intellectual and political culture, the fuzzy obits on behalf of Gerald Ford should sober you up. That is, if you're not loaded on the Great American Whitewash.