While it's true that Gerald R. Ford was the only president who was not elected, he also was well suited for his particular time in history. The Watergate scandal threatened the very nature of American democracy -- many Americans thought the system itself had been forever corrupted.

"I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots," Ford told the country. "So I ask you to confirm me with your prayers." After taking office, the 38th president proclaimed the Watergate "nightmare" over. "Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule," Ford said. A month later, in what was his most controversial act, Ford tried to remove the Watergate stain from our national discourse by pardoning Richard Nixon. Right or wrong, that act will be debated for generations. "... Someone must write the end to (Watergate)," Ford said. "I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."

The legacy we'd like to recall right now, though, is Ford's stinginess with tax dollars. He vetoed 39 spending bills in his first 14 months in office.

In one of those veto messages, Ford captured perfectly the politics of federal spending, saying he was caught in the "dilemma of offending the voting groups who benefit by these government programs," he said, adding he was indeed sympathetic with the purposes of the money. "My objection to this legislation is based purely and simply on the issue of fiscal integrity."

That is a notion worthy of emulation.

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