Pipe Up Congress, To Truly Remember Ford
December 28, 2006 at 12:35 pm
C-SPAN last night showed fascinating archival footage of Gerald Ford’s October 17, 1974 appearance before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice to explain the facts and circumstances that were the basis for his pardon of Richard Nixon. It’s the only time a sitting president has publicly presented testimony to a Congressional hearing.
As steeped in history as it was, the footage also was riveting for showing the people sitting behind Ford, presumably his lawyers and aides. Talk about a period peice — they were constantly lighting up. One kept puffing on a cigarette, the other smoked a pipe, cleaning it and fiddling with the tobacco every ten minutes or so.
Yes, there was time, 30 years ago, when you could smoke inside a Congressional committee room. Which makes me want to propose the following. Since DC is all ga ga now about Gerald Ford’s triumphant legacy of courageous bipartisan statesmanship (”gentlemanly virtues,” the Washington Post editorial calls it), Congress could swiftly step in and do something real in his memory. The should create a room on the Hill where smokers could go for a quick puff.
The Washington Post recently reported that Nancy Pelosi “is thinking of banishing tobacco from the most popular smoking spot in the [Capitol] building: the Speaker’s Lobby outside the House chamber.” OK, but why not likewise create something for the other side — as a bipartisan compromiser like Ford would? Call it the Gerald R. Ford Memorial Freedom Room — where smokers could go and not feel like they need a presidential pardon to exercise their nicotine rights. Think Arnold Schwarzenneger’s smoking tent, but with a bipartisan glowing Congressional mandate. A fitting tribute to a President who loved pipes.
Forget all those touchy-feely English muffin memories. Let’s remember the freedom-loving tobacco side of President Ford.
PoliticalCritic said,
December 28, 2006 @ 1:08 pm
Can’t believe he didn’t have the cajones to voice his opposition to the war publicly when he made those statements in July, 2004. Things may have been different. Unfortunately, he put party politics ahead of the brave fighting force over there. Make sure George wins and make sure I’m dead before I tell you how I really feel!
Unreliable Source said,
December 28, 2006 @ 2:24 pm
“Nancy Pelosi “is thinking of banishing tobacco from the most popular smoking spot in the [Capitol] building: the Speaker’s Lobby outside the House chamber.” OK, but why not likewise create something for the other side — as a bipartisan compromiser like Ford would? Call it the Gerald R. Ford Memorial Freedom Room — where smokers could go and not feel like they need a presidential pardon to exercise their nicotine rights.”
Kudoos to that, but some people can already smoke whatever they like on Capitol Hill, especially if it’s the right stuff:
http://www.mapinc.org/norml/v04/n612/a04.html?60605
A DIFFERENT KIND OF JOINT SESSION
by Richard Leiby, (Source:Washington Post)
22 Apr 2004
Last week the Capitol Police busted a young intern working for Rep. Ron Paul ( R-Tex. ) for toting a baggie of pot and a bong into the Cannon House Office Building, but they’ll have to look the other way when stockbroker Irvin Rosenfeld brings his stash onto their territory today. For more than 20 years, the federal government has supplied Rosenfeld with marijuana cigarettes, which he smokes under doctor’s orders to ease symptoms of a rare bone disorder.
Before arriving from Florida to lobby in Congress for medical use of marijuana with the pro-pot group NORML, Rosenfeld made sure to inform authorities of his dispensation to smoke 12 joints a day — he’s one of seven people who get Uncle Sam-grown reefer under a program that began in the Carter era. ( It was shut down in 1992, but some patients were grandfathered in. )
We couldn’t reach Rosenfeld, but NORML supplied a letter from his Miami physician saying the pot helps with pain and works as a muscle relaxant and an anti-inflammatory agent, adding: “Mr. Rosenfeld is not impaired by this medicine.”
William Emory, associate general counsel for the Capitol Police, assured us that Rosenfeld could light up on the Hill ( in designated smoking areas ) but said, “He can’t share it with anybody else. The exemption is for him and him alone.”
richarda said,
December 28, 2006 @ 4:18 pm
In POTUS Washington’s first attempt to obtain the “advice and consent” of the Senate to a treaty, he appeared before them in person (in closed session, as all Senate ratification/confirmation sessions were back then).
He considered their treatment of him and his mission so disrespectful (after some argumentative questions, they referred the treaty to a committee!), that he is said to have remarked that he would ‘be damned if he would go to that place again!’.