DON’T FEEL SORRY FOR GERALD FORD. He was a president who was never elected, lost his bid for a full 4-year term, and served during the rough post-Watergate years (1974 – 1977), a low point for the presidency. But the week before last, Ford and his former aides were in a happy mood as they celebrated the 30th anniversary of Ford’s inauguration as president. And they had every reason to be. Ford, still genial and upbeat at 91, delivered a speech generous to friend and foe alike. More important, historical revisionism is beginning to give his presidency higher marks.

Fred Greenstein, the presidential scholar and professor emeritus at Princeton, contrasts the Ford presidency with Bill Clinton’s. Ford stumbled at first, then got his act together. Clinton started strongly, stumbled, but never got his administration back on track. In his influential book on evaluating presidents, The Presidential Difference, Greenstein says Ford is “underappreciated.”