The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

Gerald R. Ford, a man fate placed on a stage far bigger than his modest persona suggested he belonged is dead at 93. In August 1974 he was appointed America's 38th president when Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace because of the Watergate scandal. Had he not resigned Nixon surely would've been impeached in the House of Representatives and convicted by the Senate.

Joseph Lieberman's declaration in the wake of his Connecticut Democratic Party Primary defeat on Tuesday is reminiscent of an event linking President Richard M. Nixon and Secretary of the Treasury John Connally in 1972.  The cases are particularly intriguing in view of the ideological strategy ploys invoked in each case.

It was later learned that Nixon, who had been given the nickname "Tricky Dick" for a reason, was disenchanted with Vice President Spiro Agnew, his reelection running mate in 1972 in his race against Democratic presidential nominee Senator George McGovern of South Dakota.  

Nixon, who had handpicked Agnew four years earlier for his 1968 race against Vice President Hubert Humphrey, had privately lamented that "the guy doesn't have it" and jokingly referred to the man residing one heartbeat from the presidency as his "insurance policy against assassination."

In 1971 Nixon, one year removed from a pivotal election, tapped former Texas Governor John Connally, a protégé of Lyndon B. Johnson and leader of the state Democratic Party's conservative wing, to become his Secretary of the Treasury as America was mired in a recession.