"The Staircase", (2004-2018)

This documentary is a 13-episode miniseries of a famous North Carolina murder case, in which defendant Michael Peterson was accused of killing his wife Kathleen, after she died falling down the stairs of her home in 2001. The first eight episodes, released in 2004, were based on the trial which resulted in his conviction, while episodes 9 and 10 were released in 2013, after he was granted a new trial due to prosecutorial misconduct during the original trial. Episodes 11-13 were then released in 2018, when Peterson reluctantly decided to take an Alford plea to a lesser charge, resulting in a sentence of time served, in lieu of going through the ordeal of a retrial.

The case was so compelling that a dramatization of it was released in 2022 as an 8-episode mini-series starring Colin Firth as Michael Peterson. I will be referring to this dramatization as "the mini-series".

I first watched the 2022 mini-series, and I have since watched the earlier documentary. I have to commend the dramatization for presenting the characters so perfectly. After seeing the actual people in the documentary, it is obvious that great care was taken to capture the characters accurately in the mini-series. I can't help thinking of Robert DeNiro, who, during the filming of Goodfellas, would call the mob liaison guy 5-6 times a day to be sure he was getting his Jimmy Conway character just right. For example, he would ask questions like "How did Jimmy Conway hold his cigarettes?"

One might ask how such a miscarriage of justice could occur in the United States, which offers more protections to defendants than any other country in the world. The answer is really quite simple. The criminal justice system is a human institution, and as such is as imperfect as all human institutions are. There have been 202 exonerations of death row inmates in this country to date, an astonishing number given our many safeguards against such miscarriages of justice. We are the only country in the Western world that still uses the death penalty, to our eternal shame.

There is a philosophical rule called Occam's Razor, which holds that the simplest explanation is usually the best one. In line with this principle, I have a simple, clear-cut explanation for this miscarriage of justice. Michael Peterson was a successful novelist and was also a columnist for the Durham newspaper. In his columnist role, he regularly attacked the Durham city leaders for their racism, their corruption, and their general incompetence. In particular, he specifically criticized the DA, Jim Hardin, for going after bingo parlors instead of prosecuting violent crimes. This case was Hardin's revenge. (This tidbit about Hardin being criticized was mentioned in the documentary, but not in the mini-series.)

The revenge motive for a wrongful prosecution was also seen in the tragic Wisconsin case of Steven Avery. Avery was wrongfully convicted of sexual assault and attempted murder in 1985, and served 18 years in prison until being exonerated by DNA testing in 2003. He then filed a $36 million lawsuit against the sheriff and other county officials for wrongful conviction and imprisonment. In response, the sheriff's department framed him for murder on a new case, and Avery was convicted and is still serving time for that conviction. This whole sorry saga is the subject of the Netflix documentary Making a Murderer, which I highly recommend. Nobody does documentaries better than Netflix!

While the parties were preparing for trial, it came to light that 18 years earlier, in 1985, there was a woman in Germany who died in a fall down a staircase. The defense team was obligated to investigate this situation in case the DA tried to introduce evidence of this at the trial. Consequently, the defense team made two trips to Germany to interview witnesses and examine records related to this death. The woman and her husband were neighbors and good friends with Peterson and his first wife, and after her death Peterson became the guardian of the woman's two daughters (her husband having predeceased her). There was no evidence of any affair or foul play between Peterson and the woman, but somehow the prosecution deemed her death to be relevant to the pending trial.

The prosecution was so obsessed with this German death that they had her corpse disinterred from the Texas grave where it had been resting, and transported it across the country to North Carolina so that the local Medical Examiner could do an autopsy. This other death was in no way relevant to the current case, and evidence of it would be extremely prejudicial to the defense. And yet, the DA sought to introduce it into evidence at trial. And, even more incredibly, the trial judge, a hack named Orlando Hudson, Jr., allowed it into evidence! The medical examiner, who has since been discredited, testified that in her opinion the German death was a homicide by blunt force trauma to the head.

Another extremely prejudicial decision was that the jury was allowed to hear evidence of Peterson's bisexuality. Numerous emails were exchanged between him and various male escorts, and these were introduced to support the DA's theory that Kathleen had just found out about his bisexuality, which led to a fight between the two of them, resulting in her death.

Usually judges will err on the side of caution and will not allow this sort of prejudicial evidence in, out of a desire to assure the defendant a fair trial, and to avoid being reversed on appeal. The trial judge and the DA here were both guilty of gross misconduct in introducing such prejudicial evidence which had no real probative value. And yet, neither the DA nor the judge suffered any adverse repercussions. To the contrary, this case made them both famous; DA Hardin was appointed to a judgeship in 2005, and both he and Judge Hudson continued serving as judges until their recent retirements.

Ultimately the case came down to, or at least should have come down to, a battle of the blood spatter experts, Deborah Radisch for the prosecution, and Henry Lee for the defense. One was a local medical examiner, and the other a world-renowned forensic scientist, who had worked on many famous cases such as the JonBenét Ramsey murder case, the O. J. Simpson and Laci Peterson cases, the 9/11 forensic investigation, the Washington, DC, sniper shootings, and the reinvestigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Radisch testified that the blood spatters were "not consistent" with a fall down the stairs, while Lee testified that they were not consistent with blunt force trauma to the head.

If an AI bot had been deciding this case, it would have been an easy win for the defense. However, 12 fallible humans were deciding it instead, and they were subject to all of the small-town prejudices that are so prevalent in the South. (I realize that Durham, pop. 300,000, is not literally a "small town", but it has the same provincial outlook on life as all small towns have.) Every effort was made to turn the defendant into a villain. For example, in closing argument the assistant DA, a shrewish woman named Freda Black, stressed to the jury that Peterson was a "writer of fiction", and he therefore had a special ability to make up stories and present them believably.

To me this case is eerily similar to the famous case of Dr. Sam Shepard, whose wife Marilyn was found bludgeoned to death in her bed in the early morning hours of July 4, 1954, in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. We were taking the Cleveland newspaper at the time, and I vividly remember the front-page editorial on July 30, 1954, with the garish headline "Why Isn't Sam Shepard in Jail" plastered across the top of the page in huge black letters. Even at the tender age of eight, I could sense that something wasn't quite right here. The Cleveland Police gave in to all the clamor and arrested Shepard that evening. He was convicted and spent a decade in prison before the justice system finally corrected its mistake.

In both the Shepard and the Peterson cases, the murder weapon was never found. The prosecution "expert" in the Shepard case testified that in his opinion the beating was caused by a "surgical instrument", Shepard being an osteopathic doctor. Much of the prejudice against Shepard was due to his being an osteopath, not a regular doctor. Similarly, Peterson was an outsider, not a Durham native, and the local prejudice against outsiders is strong in this provincial Southern town.

There is a popular myth among the populace that the rich person gets a better brand of justice than the poor person in our criminal justice system. In my experience this is not the case. In fact, the rich person often is treated more harshly. Prosecutors like to go after high-profile targets, for two reasons. One, it allows them to make an example of the high-profile person, to deter others from committing crimes. And two, it is a darn good way of gaining publicity for the prosecutor, thereby furthering his/her career. In most jurisdictions in the U.S., District Attorneys are elected by popular vote, so the publicity is important.

Michael Peterson had a top-notch defense, as the documentary makes clear. The original estimate from his attorney of the cost of defense was $500,000, later raised to $750,000-800,000, as more and more issues came up that had to be addressed. The defense team had a private investigator, a crusty old guy who reminded me of the Mike Ehrmantraut character from "Breaking Bad". Then there was a jury consultant, a witness coach, and other experts like Dr. Henry Lee, possibly the foremost forensic scientist in the world.

And yet, despite all of the hard work of this amazing team, Mike Peterson was convicted. Convicted despite the fact that his attorney surveyed autopsies of every single case of blunt force trauma to the head in North Carolina in the previous ten years, and they all showed either a skull fracture or a brain injury, neither of which was present in the Peterson case.

Mike Peterson's life was ruined, and he spent eight years of his life in prison. So much for this nonsense about the rich always getting preferential treatment!

The David Peterson Case

I am still watching the 2022 mini-series, "The Staircase", about this famous case, and I have not yet watched the earlier documentary. But I want to get the basic facts in mind before expounding further on this fascinating case.

Th heart and soul of this case is the amazing blended family that MIchael Peterson shared with his deceased wife, Kathleen. The miniseries doesn't always make the relationships clear. Todd and Clayton were Michael's sons with his first wife. Margaret and Martha were daughters of the Ratliffs, a couple who were friends with Michael and his first wife when they lived in Germany. After the Ratliffs both died, the Petersons took the girls in and raised them as their own. Caitlan was Kathleen's only bilogical child by her first husband. These kids were all 20-somethings at the time of Kathleen's death, and were all compellilng characters in their own rights.

Kathleen died in a staircase fall in Decmeber of 2001, and her husaband Michael was convicted of murdering her and started serving a life sentence two years later. That conviction was vacated in 2011 when a judge found that a key prosecution witness, forensic blood-spatter analyst Duane Deaver, had lied on the stand about the evidence and about his qualifications. In lieu of going to trial again, Michael opted to enter an Alford plea and was sentenced to time served.

"The Crash" (dir: Gareth Johnson, 2026)

This Netflix documentary is about a teenage girl who is accused of intentionally driving her car into a buiilding, killing her two passengers. The DA on the case worked with the police to identify the causes of the crash, and then successfully prosecuted the girl. He methodically eliminated all other possible causes of the crash, leaving only murder as a possibility. He then charged her with two counts of murder and got a conviction at the trial.

The power of the film is in its depiction of just how badly our society has disintegrated. The girl and her parents, along with other friends and family, all cooperated with this documentary, obviously in the expectation that it would show a miscarriage of justice. Instead, it shows just how off the rails we as a society have become.

The film states that the defense opted for a bench trial rather than a jury trial, but no explanation is offered for this crucial decision. I would have liked to have seen some exploration for the reasons for this choice, since it severely increased the possibility of a conviction for the defendant.

What is striking is all of the footage that exists of life for this group of teenagers bedore the crash. They were heavily into social media, particularly TikTok and Snapchat, and many videos of their everyday life before the crash are readily available. It depicts a hedonistic, self-absorbed life, full of aimlessness with a total absence of any purpose in life.

The hero of this documentary is the hard-working DA, who could easily have shrugged this off as another tragic traffic accident. Instead, he persistently analyzed possible causes, first eliminating drugs and alcohol through testing, and then eliminating accidental error through analyzing data from the car (apparently cars these days have what is equivalent to an airplane's "black box", and it showed the girl made no attempt to slow down or brake). The hard-working, plodding, methodical nature of the DA's approach demonstrates what a good lawyer is all about. The flamboyance and superficial charm which too many clients tend to gravitate to might make a lawyer financially successful, but it does not make him or her a good lawyer.

On Foolish Wars

An article I read this morning in a recent issue of The Christian Science Monitor is ostensibly about Israel's war in Lebanon against Hezbollah, but it could just as easily apply to the US war in Iran, or to Russia's war in Ukraine.

A veteran of Israel's 1982 war in Lebanon says, "The lessons we learned then have not been implemented. We think that if we use force and more force, we will succeed, but in fact, force has not solved any problems anywhere. What is needed is...an agreement."

The founder of the movement Mothers at the Front, says that "at this point there is zero tolerance for the loss of Israeli soldiers' lives, especially as there is no faith in the government or Prime Minister Netanyahu, who in 2024 said Hezbollah had been set back decades".

A writer and filmmaker says, "I would be a lot happier with what we're doing if I trusted the government. This government is very good at starting wars. It's got no idea, or maybe no inclination, to finish."

"Stand", by Cory Booker

Most books written by prospective presidential candidates are autobiographies, but this one is different. Booker writes about ten virtues, devoting a chapter to each. The ten virtues are agency, vulnerability, patriotism, truth, humility, community, creativity, perseverance, grace, and vision.

The book is written in a clear and straightforward manner, so it is an easy read. Adding to the ease of reading is the liberal spacing between lines.

Nobody of good will can read this book and come away with any doubt that Cory Booker would make a great president.

Findlay Bridge Standings

The performance against the different regular players for me and my partner is as follows, from worst to best:

tie 1. Mike & Arlene -12.5

tie 1. Ann & Nancy -12.5

3, Jim & Kathy -11

4. John & Ken -9.5

5. Brent & partner -8.5

6. Bob & Karen -8.25

7. Bill & Ralph 0

tie 8. Johanne & partner +2

tie 8. Clarence & partner +2

10. Ed & partner +4

For comparison purposes, here is the overall ranking for these same players for the past six sessions:

1. Jim & Kathy 56.6%

2. Bill & Ralph 55%

3. Bob & Karen 54.8%

4. Clarence & partner 53.5%

5. John & Ken 52.1%

6. Brent & partner 51.6%

7. Mike % Arlene 50%

8. Ann & Nancy 46.9%

9. Johanne % partner 46.7%

10. Ed & partner 42.5%

Ten Presidential Rankings the Historians Get Wrong

The latest major effort to rank the presidents is the 2024 ranking by the Presidential Greatness Project, in which historians were asked to rank each president on a scale of 0 to 100. I will discuss ten instances in which the historians' ranking differs from mine.

1. Abraham Lincoln. Historians consistently get Lincoln wrong. They list him at #1, while I have him at #34.

For the life of me I cannot understand the near-universal adoration of this warmonger of a president. He took us into a horrible Civil War, a war in which 620,000 Americans were killed, and many thousands more had their limbs brutally sawed off on the battlefield. The Civil War was by far the deadliest war in our history. The total number of dead is the highest of any war, and the 2.4% of the population who perished is by far the highest. By contrast, World War II saw "only" .3% of the population lose their lives.

Perhaps the misguided historians don't understand that it was Lincoln who started the Civil War. I suggest they read First Blood, by Pulitzer Prize winner W. A. Swanberg. Swanberg presents a detailed account of the full story of Fort Sumter. He describes how the South bent over backward to give the North every chance to withdraw peacefully from the Fort, but Lincoln was too obstinate to do so, despite the fact that almost his entire Cabinet favored withdrawal. When the Confederacy sent a delegation to Washington, DC to try to resolve the standoff, Lincoln simply refused to even meet with them. He had no interest in peace.

We hear much complaining these days about President Trump going to war with Iran without Congressional approval. The unauthorized use of executive power has been a trend for many years, but it all began with that first wannabe dictator, Abraham Lincoln. In The Imperial Presidency, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. describes how Lincoln repeatedly acted without Congressional authorization: "Lincoln delayed the convocation of Congress from April 12, 1861, when Fort Sumter was fired upon, until July 4 lest rigid constitutionalists on the Hill try to stop him from doing what he deemed necessary to save the life of the nation. In his 12 weeks of executive grace, Lincoln ignored one law and constitutional provision after another. He assembled the militia, enlarged the army and navy beyond their authorized strength, called out volunteers for 3 years service, spent public money without congressional appropriation, suspended habeas corpus, arrested people 'represented' as involved in 'disloyal' practices and instituted a naval blockade of the Confederacy."

Schlesinger goes on to say that "Throughout the war, even with Congress in session, Lincoln continued to exercise wide powers independently of Congress. He asserted the right to proclaim martial law behind the lines, to arrest people without warrant, to seize property, to suppress newspapers, to prevent the use of the post office for 'treasonable' correspondence, to emancipate slaves, to lay out a plan of reconstruction. His proclamations, executive orders and military regulations invaded fields previously the domain of legislative action. All this took place without a declaration of war by Congress."

Perhaps the historians are crediting Lincoln with ending slavery. The fact is that the Emancipation Proclamation freed no slaves. It was simply a war tactic designed to demorialize the South. The Proclamation by its terms did not free the slaves in the four Northern states which allowed slavery: Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri. And it freed no slaves in the Confederacy, as those states had seceded and Lincoln had no authority over them. And besides all that, it was not something that could be done with an executive order, any more than President Trump can abolish birthright citizenship by an executive order.

I am always amazed when I hear people talk about the Civil War as "accomplishing" the abolition of slavery. They sound like they think we'd still have slavery today but for this terrible war. The fact is that slavery was abolished throughout the Western Hemisphere by 1888, when the last holdout, Brazil, abolished it. Slavery was dying out at the time and would not have lasteed long had Lincoln simply allowed the seven seceding states to go in peace. Note my reference to only seven states; the other four seceded only after Lincoln decided to wage war on the South. Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee would have remained in the Union, and we would now be without only Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and South Carolina, which would mean we'd be better off than we are now with those backward, redneck states in the union.

2. Lyndon Johnson. The historians inexplicably have LBJ at #9, while I have him at #37.

Johnson deserves credit for many pieces of progressive legislation on domestic issues, but to me this is far outweighed by his horrible blunder in taking us into the Vietnam War. His "War on Poverty" was also a failure, so perhaps an appropriate epitaph for Johnson would be, "He fought two wars and lost them both."

3. Martin Van Buren. I have him at #6, while the historians have him at #32.

Van Buren was one of the most able presidents in our history. He fought valiantly against a horrible depression, known as the Panic of 1837, which was caused by the disastrous economic policies of his predecessor, the awful Andrew Jackson. Despite all the turmoil caused by the economic crisis, Van Buren was still so popular that he was nominated without opposition by the Democratic Party in 1840. He lost the 1840 general election after a flukish campaign featuring a "log cabin myth" perpetrated by the lightweight Whig candidate, William Henry Harrison.

And then in 1844 he had a majority of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention pledged to him, but failed to secure the nomination only because the convention had adopted an absurd "two-thirds rule", requiring that the nominee get 2/3 of the votes. This ridiculous rule remained in place in the Democratic Party until FDR abolished it in 1936.

Van Buren would have had the 1844 nomination had he pandered to the Southern wing of the party by endorsing the annexation of Texas. He refused to support annexation, because he knew that adding another slave state would only exacerbate the growing sectional tensions. And so, the Van Buren report card consists of all "A's": good moral compass, good people person, and an able administrator. Why the historians don't value these qualities is a mystery to me.

4. Rutherford B. Hayes. I have him at #5, the survey has him at #25.

Hayes' guiding principle was that "He serves his party best who serves his country best", and he followed that principle throughout his presidency. He promised upfront that he would only serve one term, because he felt that a sitting president shouldn't have to be worried about re-election. And he fought the machine politicians and the spoils system, making significant progress toward civil service reform. His presidency was a welcome change from the scandal-ridden Grant administration. And he helped unify the country by withdrawing the federal armed forces from the South. He was a highly respected elder statesman in retirement, which he used to work toward education reform and prison reform. All in all, he was one of our very best presidents. The historians show their ignorance when they fail to recognize this.

5. Chester Alan Arthur. For me he's #10, for the historians #34.

Arthur's presidency was not a particularly distinguished one, but it has been said that he "has done well...by not doing anything bad". And so, in the spirit of Roger Ebert, who once said that a good movie is one with "three good scenes and no bad ones", I give Arthur high marks.

The 1883 Pendleton Civil Service Act was a major piece of legislation which had been much needed for many years. Arthur not only signed the Pendleton Act, but he vigorously implemented its provisions.

Arthur vetoed an anti-immigration act which would have outlawed immigration from China for 20 years, and he worked with Congress to fashion a less draconian bill. In addition, he modernized the navy which when he took office consisted of mostly obsolete ships from the Civil War era.

6. Andrew Jackson. The historians have in recent years dropped him 12 places, down to #21, but they stil have him too high. For me he's at #36.

Jackson's forcible removal of Native Americans to Oklahoma is one of the sorriest chapters in U.S. history, violating the spirit, if not the letter, of the Supreme Court's decision in Worcester v. Georgia. After that opinion was rendered Jackson is reported to have said, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it." Whether Jackson actually said this or not is not the point; the point is that this accurately represented his viewpoint. Quite a conflict between the judicial and the executive branches of government could have ensued had other Presidents been as nasty and full of ill will as Jackson was.

Jackson's misguided economic policies regarding the National Bank totally wrecked the economy, leaving his successor, Martin Van Burn, to clean up the mess. Jackson, the only president ever to be censured by the Senate, certainly belongs in the National Hall of Shame, not in the top half where the historians put him.

7. James Monroe. Historians seem unable to rank any President as "great" unless there was some great crisis that he had to confront during his presidency. Hence, they rank Monroe only 18th. However, a closer examination of his presidency shows that he was a great president. He tried hard to be president of all the country, appointing Cabinet members from each sector, and visiting each sector while in office, no small feat given the difficulty of travel in those days.

His Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, served for the entire 8 years, and is widely regarded as the best Secretary of State ever. Similarly, his Vice-President, Daniel D. Tompkins, gets less recognition but as governor of New York was widely recognized for making important progressive reforms in such things as humane treatment of prisoners and humane treatment of native Americans. Monroe's presidency was aptly known as "The Era of Good Feelings". He deserves my #4 ranking, behind only Washington, Jefferson, and Teddy Roosevelt, and not the historians' #18.

8. James Madison. The last three on my list all have the same 13-position difference between my list and the historians, so they're actually tied for 8th through 10th.

James Madison deserves great credit for his work on the Constitution, but he was decidedly mediocre as a president. He took us into the War of 1812, which was a completely misguided venture which accomplished absolutely nothing. The Congressional vote to go to war against Britain was only about 60%, which was way too low to be the basis for a national war effort. (This shows a serious flaw in the constitution; i.e., if a peace treaty must have a 2/3 vote, why in the world wouldn't a vote to go to war require at least that great of a majority?) So great was the opposition to the war that it provoked a serious secession movement in the New England states.

Madison's handling of the war was completely inept. The burning of the capital is certainly a prominent black mark on his war effort, but an examination of the entire war reveals that it was mismanaged throughout.

For a detailed discussion of the war I recommend Donald R. Hickey's The War of 1812: The Forgotten War. Hickey concludes that "A combination of Federalist opposition, Republican factionalism, and general public apathy undermined the entire war effort....A strong president might have overcome some of these problems, but Madison was one of the weakest war leaders in the nation's history...Cautious, shy, and circumspect, Madison was unable to supply the bold and vigorous leadership that was needed."

I have him in the middle, at #24, but the historians oddly have him at #11.

9. Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter was the most inept president in our history not named George W. Bush. It is fine to campaign as an outsider, but once you achieve power you have to know how to use it. This Carter never figured out how to do.

Carter never did learn how to get along with Congress, and his communication skills were so poor that he was equally inept when he tried to go over the heads of Congress to the public. The Democratic whip, John Brademas, got a huge, unforgivable snub when Carter came to his home state of Indiana and gave a speech without recognizing or thanking either him or Senator Birch Bayh, both of whom were sitting right behind him on the platform. Brademas complained that "I was on Nixon's enemies list, but he never treated me that way."

Journalist David Brinkley thoughtfully summarized Carter's problems with these observations: 1) He had no base in the Democratic party and few friends in the federal government, making it difficult for him to achieve his purposes; 2) Despite his intelligence, he had a vindictive streak, a mean streak, that surfaced frequently and antagonized people; and 3) He became so absorbed in detail that he never was able to articulate a coherent public policy, foreign or domestic.

Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. says Carter was a "narcissistic loner" whose 1976 election was a mistake. Schlesinger says that the 1980 election was "the only time in my life that I voted for anyone but a Democrat for president".

In Ronald Kessler's book Inside the White House, the author writes that the Secret Service considered Carter the "least likable" of all the modern presidents. Kessler goes on to say that "If the true measure of a man is how he treats the little people, Carter flunked the test. Inside the White House, Carter was often abrupt and surly." An Air Force One flight engineer says that "Carter came into the cockpit [only] once in the two years I was on with him. But Reagan never got off or on without sticking his head in the cockpit and saying 'Thanks, fellas', or 'Have a nice day.'"

The journalist Philip Terzian emphasizes the mass firing of half of Carter's cabinet in mid-1979. Terzian says that "The message in his hasty cabinet execution was the product not of Carter's convictions but a panicked distillation of competing ideas. Whatever Americans expect in a president, at that moment they ceased to find it in Jimmy Carter. The man who had moved from virtual obscurity to the White House seemed visibly to shrink into irrelevance, even pathos--and the key to his legacy of failure was revealed."

The crowning blunder of Carter's presidency was when he ignored the advice of his intelligence people and let the Shah of Iran into the U.S. His intelligence people had told him that our embassy in Iran would be in jeopardy if he did this, and the embassy did in fact end up getting overrun and the hostages taken. Carter's excuse for his decision was that the Shah needed medical treatment that he could only get in the U.S. I accepted this explanation at the time, but later it came out that the Shah could have received the same treatment in Mexico City, since the U.S. doctors were willing to go there to treat him. So, the President who promised he would never lie to us, had lied to us. A tragic, though fitting, end to a horrible presidency, a presidency totally undeserving of the historians' #22 ranking. My #35 seems more appropriate.i

10. Gerald Ford. Gerald Ford was "the calm after the storm", providing the steady leadership which the nation needed after the turbulence of the Nixon Watergate years. His pardon of Nixon was absolutely the right thing to do; the alternative would have been for the nation to wallow in the aftermath of Watergate for many years to come.

David Gergen's Eyewitness to Power has an interesting section on the Ford presidency, which Gergen served in. Gergen says that the pardon was the right thing to do, but that the execution was flawed, because Ford had done nothing beforehand to prepare the public for the possibility of the pardon being issued. As a result, it appeared "incomprehensible, possibly corrupt, and certainly impulsive."

The other main problem with the Ford administration, according to Gergen, lay in his failure to have a strong chief of staff during the first two years of his administration. Ford wanted to be his own chief of staff, a fateful decision which crippled his administration until corrected during his last six months in office. The metaphor frequently used was "spokes on a bicycle wheel", meaning that everybody of Cabinet level reported directly to the president, rather than through a chief of staff. Gergen documents how this approach led to many problems, including with the pardon of Nixon.

I agree with Gergen's overall evaluation, which is overwhelmingly positive. Ford restored decency to the White House, made truth-telling of the highest importance, and assembled a top-notch cabinet (the "finest cabinet in the past 30 years"). Gergen calls Ford a "well-centered man", who didn't need to be president to satisfy his inner soul. He deserves my #14 ranking, and not the historians' #27.