What a post-Nixon comfort it was to have an unobjectionable figure like Jerry Ford replace one of the most objectionable figures in the country's whole long presidential pageant. "Our long national nightmare is over," the new president announced. "Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule."

It was just about the first memorable thing Jerry Ford had ever said, and the country began the long recovery from the criminal conspiracy and moral insult that R. Nixon & Unsavory Co. had been.

It was also just about the last memorable thing Jerry Ford ever said. Within a month, he had pardoned Richard Nixon, short-circuiting justice and assuring (a) his defeat in the next election, and (b) the victory of one of the most naturally incompetent, innocently destructive and utterly demoralizing American presidents of the 20th century: Jimmy Carter.

Some would later call Gerald Ford's pardon of his predecessor courage, but it was more the kind of instinctive conflict-avoidance that was always his strength - and weakness. It was only as the president between Nixon and Carter that Gerald Ford, whatever his miscues, would look like a towering figure.

There is much to be said for mediocrity, and surely it will be at the state funeral now in the offing. There are worse things. Certainly few things are more perilous than man's eternal striving for greatness and the hubris it engenders. Look what happened to Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon Johnson, and is happening to George W. Bush.

At such times we are tempted to think, oh, yes, better someone who can wrap up an indecent defeat as decently as possible, the way Jerry Ford did in Vietnam. It wasn't his fault. He was just there in the White House at the time, like Zelig. Give us another Zelig, the people cry. A nice unknown quantity who will soothe things over - a Jerry Ford. (And now a Barack Obama?)

It's exhausting, always acting on principle, seeking to shape history rather than be shaped by it. There comes a time when the country just wants it all to be over, and that is the time when a Gerald R. Ford earns our gratitude, or at least gets it. And let it be noted that Mr. Ford was a good citizen even if he was First Citizen - no easy thing.

Much like Gerald Ford himself, most of us want to do the decent thing and overlook some other things in the interest of a little peace and quiet for now, whatever whirlwind we are sowing for later. Let it be said that Gerald Rudolph Ford was just the man for his time - a time not unlike this discouraging one, a time yearning for a return to a normalcy that never was.

In the end the country was happy he came along; we could relax for a while. It gets tiring, always striving for principle.