Chewing Gum and Walking
By Ralph Keyes Aside from being a model of sanity and stability in the White House, Gerald Ford will always be remembered for something said about him: “He can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.” Actually that isn’t precisely what Lyndon Johnson said about his successor once removed. According to Washington insiders, what the earthy LBJ actually said was that Jerry Ford couldn’t “fart” and chew gum at the same time.
Bowdlerized for family newspapers and polite conversation, the chewing gum version became a common part of political parlance. In the midst of the 2004 campaign, Democratic vice-presidential nominee John Edwards avowed that, “The president of the United States has to actually be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.” During the same campaign, when he was under fire for not being the sharpest pencil in the Senate, Sen. Jim Bunning (R Ky.) told an audience, “I want everybody to look and see that I can walk and chew gum.”
The second nastiest thing LBJ said about Gerald Ford was that he’d played football too long without a helmet. Along with Chevy Chase’s weekly portrayal of the president as a clumsy stumblebum on Saturday Night Live, these comments created a vivid caricature in the public mind of Gerald Ford as a poorly coordinated dim bulb. Ford took all of this ridicule in good stride. LBJ himself, neurotic and insecure, will never get off the couch of presidential historians. Chevy Chase’s career has long been in eclipse. By contrast, Ford is being eulogized ‘as he should be‘ for the tone of civility he brought to the presidency. Too bad it didn’t last.
January 6th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Thanks for providing future historians with an unprintable correction of a famous quote! More to the point, your reference to LBJ on the couch raises the question of former presidents who really needed a shrink (e.g.Nixon), those who would probably have been sent to one but shouldn’t have been (e.g. my namesake), and at least one who is quite normal but badly needs a course in remedial reading, writing, speaking, everything (clue: what president can best be described as a 40 watt bulb in a 100 watt outlet?).
May 8th, 2007 at 3:37 am
The answer must be George Bush (both of them). LBJ will also be remembered for being at the time, the President re-elected by the biggest margin.