Oh, Roger, you awakened a memory in me — a memory from my boyhood, when I was just beginning to follow politics. After he was defeated by Governor Carter, President Ford had one main lameduck ambition: Puerto Rican statehood. That was to be his legacy, what he had to show for his two and a half years in office. Father of Puerto Rican statehood! For a presidential statement on the matter — December 31, 1976 — go here.

Of course, Ford did plenty of good, the status of Puerto Rico aside. This good is encapsulated in the opening line of President Carter’s inaugural address: “For myself and for our nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land.” That is one of the most gracious things ever uttered in an inaugural address, or any. (As regards Carter, it was all downhill from there.)

One more little thing — the page I have linked to includes a photo of President Ford. He is smoking a pipe. Could a fellow — could a president — get away with that today? In Impromptus yesterday, I published a letter from a man who described “the most frustrating run-in” with literary PC he had ever had. He purchased a “beautifully illustrated copy” of “The Night Before Christmas” — only to find that a verse had been deleted, edited out, airbrushed. This one: “The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, / And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.”

The kiddies must not think Santa smokes, or ever did.

Will they — you know, “they” — airbrush the pipe out of President Ford’s mouth? They have done this kind of thing with a postage stamp, at least once. Remember when they airbrushed the cigarette out of that bluesman’s mouth? (To recall the controversy, go here.) One negative consequence of doing that: the resulting mouth looks weird.

Modern America can be a strange place. FDR, who never wanted to be pictured in a wheelchair — or even seen in one — is memorialized on the Mall in a wheelchair. Yet those who posed with cigarettes: get those cigarettes airbrushed out. Kind of funny.