Yesterday we learned via Bob Woodward, writing in the WaPo, that when Gerald Ford was interviewed in 2004 he had some harsh words to say about Mr Bu$h’s most excellent adventure to prove his ego-war was more important than Iraqi or American lives. Since this was in the WaPo, there will of course be no citations but I did don my anti-cataract glasses before reading today’s column, so these are accurate quotes:

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.

"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."

In a conversation that veered between the current realities of a war in the Middle East and the old complexities of the war in Vietnam whose bitter end he presided over as president, Ford took issue with the notion of the United States entering a conflict in service of the idea of spreading democracy.

Gerald Ford with common sense? It’s surprising that a man who played his role of “accidental President” so well appears to actually be able to think his way through an ethical conundrum. What a pity he never spoke out at the time. He was a Republican of course, and one thing you learn early in the party of crime and corruption is party first, party second, wallet third, family fourth, and country last.

This is of course the great ethicist who spoke the now-notorious words about “our great national nightmare” being over as he applied an industrial-sized broom and ballroom sized carpet to the criminal Nixon years. Rumors that he signed the pardon before he even sat down in the Oval Office are probably true.

I have to admit that my own best Gerald Ford memories involve errant golf balls and innocent bystanders. It became such a thematic moment of the late 1970s that Chevy Chase built a career on the theme. Second best Ford memory of course was Mr Ford opening for Saturday Night live. Personal and political qualities aside, he had a good sense of humor.

"Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people," Ford said, referring to Bush's assertion that the United States has a "duty to free people." But the former president said he was skeptical "whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what's in our national interest." He added: "And I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security."

I was a bit surprised to read this bit of trivia. The thrust of the article is quite negative, and makes the point that the “embargo” was imposed by President Ford, specifying that the interview could not be published until after his death. Whether that demand was out of party loyalty or fear of being invited to go dove hunting with Mr Cheney is something you’d have to decide for yourself.

In the end, though, it was Vietnam and the legacy of the retreat he presided over that troubled Ford. After Saigon fell in 1975 and the United States evacuated from Vietnam, Ford was often labeled the only American president to lose a war. The label always rankled.

"Well," he said, "I was mad as hell, to be honest with you, but I never publicly admitted it."

President Ford will not be the only Republican executive in that category, soon.