Famous people always go in threes. It’s a law, like gravity or thermodynamics (one and two) or vehicular manslaughter. In keeping with this law, three seemingly disparate public figures slid gently into the annals of history over winter break. One was a troubled-yet-beloved entertainer, another an avuncular-if-doddering politician, and the last a bloodthirsty-cum-maniacal dictator.
At first glance, James Brown, Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein do not appear to have much in common – among other things, they lacked the swinging, hedonistic camaraderie of the Rat Pack. Yet, in a strange convergence of pop culture, politics and international Realpolitik, their lives are inexorably intertwined, separated by the slightest degrees, as so many lives are in retrospect.
Ford was the only President not elected to an Executive-level position. He came to the White House as a placeholder, in the days after the Watergate scandal. Controversial for his pardon of Richard Nixon, once the epitome of an unpopular president, Ford lost the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter, later the epitome of an ineffectual president. In a recent article for Slate.com, journalist Christopher Hitchens, famous for his unhinged transformation from a Trotskyite to a Neo-Conservative contrarian pundit, says Ford “ended a dream – the ideal of equal justice under the law that would extend to a crooked and venal president.”
Hitchens, however, is an unwavering supporter of Bush’s vaguely defined War Against Bad Things.
This is hardly surprising. Hitchens’ view of history is often solipsistic and self-serving (this is Hitchens’ description, mind you). And his shrill denouncements of Ford, valid or not, are an extension of his opposition to Henry Kissinger, who served as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor concurrently under Ford. Hitchens has an unhealthy obsession with Kissinger. In 2002 he wrote a book about him, “The Trial of Henry Kissinger,” later turned into a documentary. Hitchens considers Kissinger a war criminal for his role in Chile, Vietnam and Cambodia. It’s curious, then, that Hitchens has said little about the revelation that Kissinger spent time after 9/11 conferring with Bush, whose wartime policies Hitchens extends ample quarter. The hanging of Saddam Hussein, though, is where he draws the line. And this is understandable. No matter how you feel about Hussein, it’s hard to view his execution with anything approaching relief.
For more than 20 years, Hussein ruled Iraq with an iron fist, murdering Kurds and Persians, gassing villages and amassing an army of ruthless thugs to dispense savage justice and entrench his dictatorial power. Hussein was clearly a criminal. His trial, much like Hitchens’ symbolic “Trial of Henry Kissinger,” was done in full view of the public, though it was plotted much more poorly. Hussein was executed for ordering the killing of 143 Shi’ia in 1982 – one of the lesser charges leveled against him, as it came in response to an assassination attempt. Hussein’s tribunal smacked of victor’s justice, lacking judicial review and proper due process.
During the mid 1970s, little was done to prevent Hussein’s ascension to power. During the 1980s, Donald Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of Defense under Ford, worked for the Reagan administration in a number of capacities. When the United States normalized relations with Iraq in 1983, less than a year after Hussein’s Shi’ia slaughter, Reagan sent Ford’s former defense secretary to Baghdad to meet Hussein, who was in the throes of a protracted conflict with Soviet-backed Iran.
Both Hussein and Ford ascended at approximately the same time – Ford in 1974, Hussein in 1979 – yet neither was elected. Only Ford, though, could claim to be a “funky President.”
Released in 1974, “Funky President (People It’s Bad)” remains one of James Brown’s more obscure cuts. It doesn’t help that the song is vaguely political yet contains obtuse lyrics like, “Turn up your funk motor, get down and praise the Lord/Get sexy sexy, get funky and dance/Love me baby, love me nice/Don’t make it once, can you make it twice/I like it.” Frankly, the song doesn’t make any sense (unless you comprehend the concept of a president turning up his “funk motor”). According to Jesse Walker of Reason Magazine, most people originally thought the song was about Nixon, whom Brown endorsed throughout his presidency – he even performed “Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)” during Soul Brother Nixon’s 1969 inauguration. It wasn’t until Brown wrote his autobiography that he set the record straight, claiming the song was about Ford, whom he called a nice man but not very presidential.
As time marches forward, that is probably how most Americans will view Ford. He was an unassuming man tasked with overseeing the presidency during a shaky time. Hussein will be remembered as a power-hungry strongman who made mortal enemies with the United States. Brown left his indelible mark on everything his energy and enthusiasm touched, but he will be remembered chiefly for being the hardest workingman in show business. These men share the tenuous connection of existing at a time and in a place shaped by the words, actions and relationships of powerful men.
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