Palm Springs, CA – Betty Ford, the outspoken and much-admired wife of President Gerald R. Ford who overcame alcoholism and an addiction to pills and helped found one of the best-known rehabilitation centers in the nation, died Friday in Palm Springs, Calif. She was 93.
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The news of her death at Eisenhower Medical Center brought statements of condolence from President Obama, former Presidents George Bush, George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, and Nancy Reagan, the former first lady.
“She was Jerry Ford’s strength through some very difficult days in our country’s history,” Mrs. Reagan said, “and I admired her courage in facing and sharing her personal struggles with all of us.”
Few first ladies have been as popular as Betty Ford, and it was her frankness and lack of pretense that made her so. She spoke often in support of the Equal Rights Amendment, endorsed legalized abortion, discussed premarital sex and revealed that she intended to share a bed with her husband in the White House.
When her husband’s voice failed him the morning after he was defeated by Jimmy Carter in 1976, it was she who read the official concession statement with smiling grace. And when Mr. Ford died in December 2006, it was Mrs. Ford who announced his death. The six days of national mourning returned her to a spotlight she had tried to avoid in her later years, living in Rancho Mirage, Calif., a golf community southeast of Palm Springs, and tending to her clinic there, the Betty Ford Center.
She was a very classy lady and had a major impact on open an candid discussion of substance abuse and breast cancer. I hope we don’t get into a discussion of the fact that she died within several weeks of several gadolim and what that may mean.
We won’t. Not sure why you think we would!
#2 – we would only say that if she was a Rebbitzen not some goyta. Idiot.
Betty Ford’s passing away brought on points such as some of the above letter writers being messed up, misguided, idiots and have nasty minds. Those who throw out such abuse ought to learn from Betty Ford’s example and relate to those whom they do not agree with with some dignity.