Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, the waif-like Charles Manson follower who tried to shoot President Gerald Ford outside the Capitol in Sacramento in 1975, will be released from prison as early as Aug. 14, authorities said today.
Fromme, now 60, has been serving a life sentence in Texas. A federal parole board granted her parole last year, but her release was delayed because she got extra time after trying to escape from a West Virginia facility in 1987.
Northern California was not kind to Ford, as he survived a second attempted assassination just 17 days later in San Francisco. Sarah Jane Moore was also a Manson acolyte and is (I think) still in prison.
It's unclear why the Manson Family was gunning for Ford. Fromme's "insights" on the matter failed to provide much-needed clarity:
She once denounced the president in an interview with the Associated Press, saying, "If Nixon's reality, wearing a new Ford face, continues to run the country against the law, our homes will be bloodier than the Tate-LaBianca houses and My Lai put together."
Yes, kids, people used to talk like that back then. PJ O'Rourke - or maybe Dave Barry? - once joked that 21st century grandkids would have to cope with aging Baby Boomers having "Nixon fits." It seemed funny at the time, but that was before Bush Derangement Symdrome kicked in.
It's hard to imagine what Fromme is like now. She was clearly a troubled, if not disturbed, young woman who wasn't quite crazy enough to qualify for an insanity defense, although the fact that she represented herself at trial probably didn't help. Not sure why she's being paroled now. Is she sick? Is it because Ford died? Whatever it is, I sincerely hope there will be no tearful media appearances. If would-be presidential assassains can now be paroled, can we at least agree to ignore them once they're out?
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