Political satire has been with us since Aristophanes. Every prominent political figure has been a target of satire. Even emperors. Ford never expected to be an exception, though it annoyed him to be depicted as a klutz. A sedentary man would have presented a much smaller target for physical comedy than a man who was physically active.

So Ford had his day in the satirist's prism, in which his public characteristics were distorted for laughs. His steadiness became dullness. His physical gaffes became clumsiness. (One of these, when he hit a spectator with a golf ball, was memorably recorded by his friend Bob Hope, who said that one could track Ford's whereabouts on the golf course by following the wounded.) And of course, there was the WIN button, which was roundly mocked as failed sympathetic magic applied to the economy.

I remember all that. I also remember the two assassination attempts, and Ford's refusal to retreat into a cocoon after them. I remember his robust family life, and his outspoken, admirable, intelligent wife who obviously loved him, which also says a lot about the man.

The thing that hurt him most was none of that, but his pardon of Nixon. At the time, I was very annoyed, because I wanted to learn the whole story, which we probably never will, but I was much younger and less patient then. The pardon allowed Jimmy Carter to run not against Gerald Ford, but Richard Nixon. As my employer at the time said, "The Democrats could run Satan himself and win." Even so, Ford almost won that election, a scant consolation, as Al Gore knows.

And I still don't like Ronald Reagan. I don't care that his wife loved him, because I don't respect Nancy as a leader or a sensible person. I don't care that he had Alzheimer's, because when he was in the driver's seat, he knocked the slats out from under people without money and health care. (I only wish that he could have received the treatment they did.) I don't like the fact that he probably broke the law in the Iran-Contra affair, or if he didn't know what was going on, that he was probably in the first throes of Alzheimer's and should have been removed from office. He gets credit for contributing to the fall of the Soviet Union: he spent them into the ground by running a deficit exceeded only by our current Republican incumbent. He also liked to cozy up to dictators if they weren't Communists, a lovely practice. He was rhetorically effective, a fine talent, but not the exclusive measure of greatness. He was very photogenic and affable. My dad once said his domestic policy brought out the dark side of the American Dream: "I've got mine and to hell with you." He does not deserve the adulation he has received, as history will eventually show, but not until all of his cheerleaders are dead, which means I won't see it either.

Ford was mocked as all political leaders are mocked, based on exaggeration of their own characteristics. The mockery was mild and rather pedestrian, because there were few faults to find. A WIN button is a far cry from "Mission Accomplished".