A day of funerals.

I've been watching two funerals today. Gerald Ford's, which began this morning and will conclude tonight (I went out at about 11:50 and watched the plane carrying his casket-- usually it is one of two planes designated as Air Force 1 when the president uses it, but today it is called, 'special air mission 29000,') and James Brown's.

Ford's funeral (at least the departure from California) was as dignified as one would expect. Betty Ford was a picture of class. I've always wondered how the widows of some of our presidents are able to stand and watch through all the ceremony of a state funeral. But she did. And Betty Ford was certainly the classy lady that we've always seen, since she first came out and used her own trials with substance abuse and later with breast cancer to draw all of us into the discussions of those important topics.

James Brown's funeral, well, for most of it, it was like going to a James Brown concert. There were a number of performers and they got the whole room hopping. Watching M.C. Hammer dance (which to be honest I'd never seen him dance before) evoked Brown.

There was one moment which was poignant but in which someone made the wrong statement at the wrong time. Tomie Rae Brown (remember earlier this week I called her a Golddigger and my opinion of that hasn't changed) took a moment to look at him in the casket, then broke a flower off of one of the bouquets and threw it in there. Staged? Maybe, in fact probably. But then it was sad that some in the crowd began booing and yelling at her to get off the stage. To be honest, that was unnecessary. The legal case will go as it does. But James Brown was a classy man, whatever his problems may have been, and I don't think he would want anyone saying anything like that to the mother of his son, at his funeral.

There was another poignant moment a bit after that. Al Sharpton was speaking (and yes, it was a great speech.) At one point (and I am as directly as I can, quoting reverend Sharpton here-- and he is a man who I greatly admire) he said that he had a talk with James Brown, his friend of thirty-five years, just last week, the last time he saw him. And he said that James Brown told him to tell people, 'What happened to I'm black and I'm proud? Now we call each other ni****s and who***s and bit***s. Why? James Brown wants us to clean up the music.' Probably everyone who is anyone in the African-American music community was in that room, so it was a good message. And then he named Michael by name and invited him up to the stage, and Michael Jackson came up and spoke about how James Brown inspired him-- they still love him there (and let's remember that the jury in his trial a couple of years ago did vote to acquit him-- so he is no more a felon than you or I, and it seems that the people there recognize that and are more willing to forgive people for whatever their perceived tresspasses may have been.)

Now, I have a question for people reading this blog. Why is it that a few weeks ago we all admired how well the Amish were willing to forgive a man who was guilty (and it is admirable that they forgave him) but you probably won't hear anyone praising the black community for their willingness to accept someone like Michael Jackson who was tried and found not guilty? Is it a double standard?

And oh, yeah. Saddam Hussein was executed and will be buried tonight. And compared to Gerald Ford and James Brown his funeral is down at the bottom of the list.

Ford thought Iraq war was a mistake.

Caught up in all the Gerald Ford retrospectives this week, let's remember what he said about George Bush's decision to invade Iraq.

Ford said the justifications were inadequate to justify the war.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In an interview never before published, former President Gerald Ford said President Bush and his chief advisers "made a big mistake" with their justifications for the Iraq war.

Ford made the comments in a four-hour interview in 2004 with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward....

"I don't think, if I had been president -- on the basis of the facts as I saw them publicly -- I don't think I would have ordered the Iraqi war," Ford said in a part of the interview broadcast on CNN's "Larry King Live" Wednesday.

"I would have maximized our efforts through sanctions, through restrictions, whatever, to find another answer," the former president said.

Too bad he wasn't still the President in that case. What we had instead was a bunch of chicken hawks who had managed to avoid combat themselves, apparently making decisions to send other people off to war without adequately thinking through what the cost of war could be, and more importantly what the cost of failure might be. And backed up by the neo-con crowd whose idea of warfare and military strategy is mostly derived from late nights playing Risk.

Gerald R. Ford, 1913-2006

It is being reported that Former President Gerald R. Ford has just died.

President Ford was unique among all of America's chief executives in that he was never elected, either to the Presidency or to the Vice Presidency. He was picked by Richard Nixon to replace Spiro Agnew during the scandal-choked year of 1973. The following year he acceded to the Presidency when Nixon resigned. Ford was President for two years. Even before that Ford was a sometimes controversial figure, having served on the Warren Commission that eventually concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, had fired all the shots that hit President Kennedy and Governor Conally on that black day in November of 1963; Ford was the last surviving member of that commission. Ford served in the House of Representatives representing Grand Rapids, Michigan, until the day he was confirmed as Vice-President of the United States.

During his two years, he was a sometimes-controversial President. He set a modern record for vetoing legislation, as even after the 1974 election he did not concede an inch to the Democratic Congress. He also pardoned Richard Nixon after Nixon resigned the Presidency (effectively ending the Watergate investigation), raising the spectre of a backroom deal (which both men vigorously denied for the rest of their lives, but the possibility has to be considered nevertheless.) Ford presided over the final American withdrawl in Vietnam, including the evacuation of embassy personnel by helicopter from the rooftop of the embassy in Saigon. In 1975, Khmer Rouge guerillas, who had just seized power in Cambodia, seized the U.S. spy ship Mayaguez. Ford authorized a rescue mission, which also became controversial, as 38 marines died to rescue 39 hostages. Ford also survived two assassination attempts, including one by 'Squeaky' Fromme, a former member of the Manson family.

To be honest, for a Republican President I almost liked Gerald Ford. Even with all the vetoes, he was willing to work with Congress, and the strident partisanship, which are in abundance now and which was in abundance when he took office, had all but disappeared by the end of his term. He was also arguably the last ex-President to behave as people had come to expect an ex-President to behave, largely ducking involvement in big projects or working for the betterment of the world, instead occasionally coming in off the golf course to answer a few softball questions. Both his predecessor, Nixon, and his successor, Carter, began to set a different pattern for ex-Presidents, that of social activist and worker.