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Title: Two world leaders; two very different deaths: Saddam Hussein and Gerald Ford

This past Friday evening, the entire world was glued to the coverage of the
execution of Saddam Hussein. The dictator's hanging is a true historical event,
putting a firm end to an unimaginable rein of terror and hopefully bringing some
small measure of closure to Hussein's hundreds of thousands of victims.

That same night, one channel up from CNN, was C-SPAN, covering the solemn image
of the flag draped coffin covering the body of former president Gerald Ford.
People filed past the coffin slowly and respectfully as Marine Guards kept
watch. On any other day, this memorial of a former president would have been the
lead story.

Saturday morning, news and images of Hussein's execution were justifiably the
top and sole story, and coverage only broke periodically to cover the moving
ceremony as President Ford's body was ceremoniously carried to Air Force One for
the state funeral in Washington.

Two lives, two world leaders, diametrically opposite in every belief, two men
who so profoundly affected history their bodies and deaths being handled in
such very different ways.

Such a paradox.

I was 10 when President Richard Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford a man who never
sought the highest office, assumed the role of our new Commander-in-Chief. Ford,
by all accounts, was a rarity in Washington a decent, moral, honorable man. He
was not dynamic, he was not a superstar and some called him mediocre. But he had
a profound love for his country. The only man who was never elected to the vice
presidency and presidency was the right man at the right time. For 29 months,
Ford served this nation well, to the best of his abilities. Many historians
argue that his election loss to Jimmy Carter in 1976 was a direct result of
Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon and that's probably true. Many supposed a deal
had been made between Nixon and Ford for the pardon.

But Gerald Ford was not the type of man to be involved in backroom deals and
insider politics. I believe as many do that his pardon of Nixon was his own
decision, his own choice to try to bring healing and closure to a nation that
desperately needed it at the time. To that end, he succeeded brilliantly.

And unlike George H. Bush and Bill Clinton, Gerald Ford presidency ended and he
quietly returned to the life of a private citizen, speaking at times, avoiding
the public eye, and always a statesman. In fact, he mandated that the interview
he gave describing his criticisms of the Iraq war

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