He was an impeccably respectable president,...

...in fact there were no scandals in the Whitehouse of Gerald Ford that come to my mind right now.

He was a statesman and politician long before he became vice president or president.

He was the only president never to have been elected to either the position of vice president or president.

He was the president under whom the war in Vietnam ended, and he was loyal to our allies, even though that war was started and botched by others, he sensibly believed we should have seen it through:

"It has been said that the United States is overextended, that we have too many commitments far from home, that we must re-examine what our truly vital interests are and shape our strategy to conform to them..."

"I find no fault with this as a theory, but in the real world such a course must be pursued carefully. We cannot, in the meantime, abandon our friends while our adversaries support and encourage theirs.". (Do those complaints he mentioned sound familiar.)

His presidency had its controversy:

He was appointed to the vice presidency to replace Spiro Agnew who had left it in disgrace.

He took the presidential reins after the Nixon resignation.

He pardoned President Richard M. Nixon.

Very shortly thereafter, he pardoned the Vietnam war draft dodgers.

He had a very good outlook about government, later echoed by his intra-party rival Ronald Reagan:

"A government big enough to give us everything we want is a government big enough to take from us everything we have."

He helped tone down the nuclear threat.

He was a survivor.

He survived WWII in the U.S. Navy.

He survived media attacks that attempted to make him look as if he was physically bumbling and clumsy; yet all the while he was quite the adroit athlete. (Now as then, they in the mainstream media, do all in their power to distort the man at the helm when they do not agree with his policies. When they could not attack his impeccable character, they trumped up claims of his being physically clumsy, and sometimes apparently set him up to literally take a fall. )

He survived a Congress that was stacked in favor of the Democrats, and that had little regard for his views or his presidency; and he used his presidential veto 38 times while trying to do the right thing for the United States of America.

He survived two assassination attempts unharmed.

He survived a long time; he was the oldest living president, passing away at 93.

May the heavens receive him kindly.

My condolences to his family, loved ones, and to the nation; he will be sorely missed.

All the best,
Glenn B