The death of Gerald Ford has brought some weird grandstanding behavior on the part of NewsMax. It has started up a petition to name a new Navy destroyer after the former president. The odd thing about this is that Ford was a moderate Republican — the kind conservatives like those at NewsMax typically loathe — but that hasn’t stopped Dave Eberhart, in a Dec. 28 article, from touting Ford as “that unique personality who bound the nation’s wounds and set it back on a flank speed course for greatness” and approvingly citing “a groundswell of support in Congress to name a great warship after him.”
NewsMax also trots out Jerry Zeifman, who makes a point of declaring himself a Democrat yet again as he uses a Dec. 29 column to praise Ford as “the most nonpartisan and ethical president in my life time” and attack “the current left wing of our Democratic Party.” As we’ve previously noted, Zeifman is one of those “Democrats” who likes only Republicans and wrote a book claiming that “Kennedy loyalists” such as Hillary Rodham obstructed Richard Nixon’s impeachment to protect the reputation of John Kennedy — a bit of conspiracy-mongering readers might want to know as he bashes the New York Times for “assail[ing Ford] for the pardon of Richard Nixon.”