snootful

photo credit: "Flask" by Joe Shlabotnik (CC-BY-2.0) Image cropped and background removed

This comment comes from Ford’s bid for the 1976 presidency. Opponent Jimmy Carter had criticized the three martini lunch as a tax write-off for wealthy businessmen and Ford was defending it. I should note to non-Americans that the President, who passed away last week, is not generally remembered for this quote—I just found it and was surprised by Ford’s candor.

I was pretty young when he was in the White House and watching the news this week, I discovered that I had a much better memory of comedian Chevy Chase impersonating him on Saturday Night Live than I did of the man himself. The president had a few clumsy moments during his tenure and the Chase capitalized on it, doing regular impressions of Ford falling down in various situations.

These pratfalls had a bad effect on not only on Ford’s public persona but also on Chase’s health—he said in the 1980s that they caused injuries that contributed to a prescription painkiller addiction. (In an ironic twist, Chase checked into the Betty Ford clinic—named for Ford’s wife—to overcome his drug problems.)

But Ford was not really so uncoordinated. As he said truthfully in his 1979 autobiography, A Time to Heal, “There was no doubt in my mind that I was the most athletic president to occupy the White House in years.” Ford was a star football player for the University of Michigan in the 1930s and was even offered professional contracts with the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers (he turned both down to go to law school).

Nor did he lack a sense of humor. At a 1975 dinner for the Radio and Television Broadcasters Association, he parodied Chase’s over-the-top impression, “accidentally” knocking silverware into the comic’s lap and dropping his notes to great laughter and applause. 

*translation for my non-native speakers: “an earful, a bellyful and a snootful” means plenty of conversation to listen to, plenty to eat and plenty to drink.

A. C. Kemp | January 4, 2007