presidential slim pickings

David Broder's column in Sunday's Washington Post has the best anecdote on Gerald Ford that I've read. Broder quotes David Obey of Wisconsin. As Broder tells it:

Two years ago, on a visit to Washington, Ford spent an hour chatting with members on the floor of the House, where he had served for so many years.

Obey, one of the few current members who served with Ford, told the former president that he was finishing a memoir, in which he discussed all the presidents he'd known in Washington, from Richard Nixon to the current President Bush.

"You'll be surprised," said the liberal Democrat, "but I've written that you were the best president of the bunch."

Ford paused for a moment and then replied with a smile, "Pretty slim pickings, wasn't it?"

The Obey memoir is forthcoming from the U of Wisconsin Press.

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