All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

You have to hand it to Chrysler. Their sales in the United States dropped 30 percent in October compared to October 2008, but they’re crowing that October was six percent better than September. I don’t know whether that says more about Chrysler or September. In fact September was a pretty bad month for all the carmakers because it was the first month up after the expiration of the popular Cash for Clunkers program. All of Detroit suffered a bit of a hangover when the deals stopped being done.

By comparison, GM and Ford did pretty well. GM, which had a 4.7 percent jump in October would have been up 11.6 percent, but it was dragged down by its Hummer, Saab, Saturn and Pontiac brands – all of which are being dropped eventually. Ford kept up its hot streak, recording a 3 percent bump in October sales. It’s already benefitting from positive consumer reviews of its products and fresh profits in the third quarter.

Auto industry writer Paul Ingrassia, author of the forthcoming Crash Course was impressed by both Ford and GM.

“The progress is welcome and it’s real,” he said in an interview. “There’s a long way to go, but you have to have a few first steps.”

And you have to step in the right direction, which is what Chrysler is not doing.

Says Ingrassia: “Chrysler is still in the deep woods here and it’s unclear what will happen.”

A look at their report for October shows incredible declines in almost all of its models except the Dodge Challenger. Chrysler Sebring? Down 69 percent. Chrysler Aspen? Down 68 percent. Town and Country minivan? Down 33 per cent. Zheesh!

This is a company in desperate need of a turnaround plan, which is exactly what its new owner, Fiat, will unveil this week. The word is that Fiat plans to introduce many smaller models to Chrysler showrooms.

Judging from the way its current lineup has been selling, Chrysler could use anything other than what it already has on offer.

CBS News producer Ward Sloane looks at Gerald Ford's attempt to heal his beloved Episcopal Church.

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President Gerald R. Ford lived a wonderful life. By all accounts he was a man of faith and his actions as a public and private figure certainly seem to bear out those accounts. It is, perhaps, why, when he stunned the country and granted a disgraced president an unconditional pardon he was able to go out and play golf later that afternoon. That is the mark of a man who is comfortable in his own skin and confident in his judgment.

Watergate was a big breach. Somebody had to take hold and move the country forward. Gerald Ford decided he was that man.

Historians are now rewriting their own histories of Gerald Ford, exonerating the President for his once unpardonable pardon. See Richard Reeves, who wrote "A Ford, Not a Lincoln." Politicians, too, are changing their minds, even Democrats. See Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy.

And now there is another Ford stunner.

I refer to the eulogy given by Gerald Ford's rector at the State Funeral in the Washington National Cathedral. I suspect that it was not lost on the Rev. Dr. Roger Certain that the pulpit in which he stood is in fact the most influential pulpit of the Episcopal Church in the United States. It is a national house of prayer, but it also the national home of the Episcopal Church.

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At the top of President Gerald Ford's legacy will be his decision to pardon his disgraced predecessor Richard Nixon "for all offenses against the United States which he ... has committed or may have committed," during his time as president.

It's been called an act of great courage for helping the country heal the wounds of Watergate. And the outcry that followed also probably cost Ford the 1976 election. But the issue demands further clarity. If the public was so outraged at the pardon, then how can historians say decades later it helped heal the nation?

To answer this question we reached out to our resident presidential historian, CBS News consultant Douglas Brinkley. He pointed us to an excerpt from his new book due out next month where veteran journalist and early critic of the pardon decision Bob Woodward talks about his 1997 interview with the former president:

He emerged from his interviews with Ford convinced that pardon was not just justified but was downright heroic. "Ford was wise to act," was Woodward's conclusion. "What at first and perhaps for many years looked like a decision to protect Nixon was instead largely designed to protect the nation.

"Watergate was a poison that would not go away."

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Hi, everyone.

If you think we live in politically divisive times now remember just how polarized the country was when Gerald Ford assumed the presidency back in 1974.

The Vietnam War and the scandals of Watergate bitterly divided Americans. Inflation and oil shortages added to the tensions. But with humility and humanity, a man who had never been elected to national office convinced the nation that "our long national nightmare" was over.

Americans breathed a collective sigh of relief and President Ford helped restore public confidence in the presidency and move the nation forward from one of its darkest hours.

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When I heard the news of President Ford's death, all those conversations I had with him flooded back into my memory. It was not so much what he said, but who he was. He was a decent, straight-talking, mid-westerner without an ounce of pretense about him – even though he occupied the nation's highest office. What a time that was. When President Ford took office, Americans felt betrayed by their own government – by its conduct of the Vietnam War and Watergate. Mr. Ford was a steady hand through that.

And his wife, Betty, helped shape the country too. By having the courage to bring the great secret of breast cancer into the open by sharing with the world her own struggle, she allowed women not only to share their secrets, but politicized the country to begin researching a cure. That openness also led Mrs. Ford to confront her battle with alcoholism and addiction in public and with honesty, again helping countless people at a time when substance abuse was also rarely discussed.

Perhaps history will not remember Gerald Ford as the finest president, but I do think he'll be remembered as one of the finest people.

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Longtime Washington producer Ward Sloane has been spending some time watching political ads -- and finding out where they come from. What he found might surprise you. -- Ed.

The ad produced by the Republican National Committee against Harold Ford in Tennessee may be the sleaziest of the season. That’s hard to say definitively, because we’ve got more than a week to go and desperate candidates will do desperate things to get elected.

But here’s the thing. Negative, attack ads like that used to be produced by “shadowy outside groups” and took days to track down who actually made the ad and who paid for it.

Well, it ain’t so hard anymore. We know who did that ad…they told us right at the end of it – The Republican National Committee. That’s right. Despite all the brouhaha over campaign reform—and getting rid of those independent groups that finance so many sleazy ads—the sleazy ads are now financed by a new source: THE POLITICAL PARTIES THEMSELVES.

It's an easy way to put on negative ads and give the national parties and the candidates deniability. Here’s how it works...

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For today's Notebook, Katie looks back at a significant moment in history. It happened 32 years ago this week. And it changed everything. Click on the image and watch.

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