There are just some places that you do not go.

[necso]

As far as I can remember, there have been no criminal prosecutions of American Presidents.

Perhaps there should have been a few.

Grant walked on some pretty thin ice, but one cannot believe of him that he was personally involved in any of the scandals of his administration.

Nixon comes to mind, of course. But he was pardoned by President Ford, before any real ugliness could occur.

Many people believe President Ford did this as some sort of sordid deal. --- Those people do not know Gerald Ford.

President Ford was, and is, a good, decent, patriotic man -- if not a particularly bright one.

But what gifts a man has is not under his control -- only what he does with with them. And President Ford did well with what he had, for he understood the important things in life and he knew how to act regarding them.

President Ford pardoned Nixon because a criminal prosecution (indeed, any prosecution) would have further divided an already divided nation.

President Ford also pardoned Nixon because the Presidency is the highest office in the land, and no matter who holds it, that office must not be dragged through the mud. For the Presidency is representative of all our nation, its people and its principles -- and what effects the Presidency effects all those things.

President Ford knew what the political cost of pardoning Nixon would be -- for he didn't get where he was by not understanding politics. But President Ford was the sort of man who did the right thing, even when it hurt. --- And looking back, he seems a giant by the standards of our day.

Pardoning Nixon was the right thing to do -- I see this now.

But I didn't see it at the time.

[cleofus1]

1. yeah right....

He should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law...no man is above the law...and like Baretta said, "if you can't do the time...don't do the crime..."

[Devils Advocate NZ]

2. Tell me - if they had prosecuted Nixon and imprisoned him...

Do you think later Presidents such as George Bush (Snr and Jnr) and yes, even Clinton, would have felt they were above the law, they way they did (and do)?

Not prosecuting Nixon sent a message to every future president: If you want to get away with a crime - be the president.

That has GOT to be bad for the presidency.

[NWHarkness]

3. If Nixon had been prosecuted

Maybe we would not have had to go through Iran-Contra and the savings and loan scandal, and the current Halliburton mess, etc.

But Ford sent out the word that presidents and their top cronies could get away with damn near anything.

Gerald Ford was about all else a partisan politician and man of his party. I don't believe he made a corrupt deal with Nixon. He didn't have to, Nixon nominated him for VP because he knew that he would pardon him if the situation arose, simply out of party loyalty.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. Nixon should have been tried and convicted

THEN Ford could pardon him. That way the world knew Nixon was wrong in what he did. The pardon before a trial set a dangerous precident.

[Drifter]

5. This is nothing more than ...

Republican propoganda. It is meant to say, hey he really wasn't that bad. If these thugs honestly believed the following:

"President Ford also pardoned Nixon because the Presidency is the highest office in the land, and no matter who holds it, that office must not be dragged through the mud. For the Presidency is representative of all our nation, its people and its principles -- and what effects the Presidency effects all those things."

We would not have had to endure the embarrassing assault on Clinton, and perhaps he could have done a BETTER job.

Nixon was a crook. He proved it when he announced "I am not a crook".

Cheers
Drifter

[NorthernSpy]

6. is a 'President' some kind of monarch?

President Ford also pardoned Nixon because the Presidency is the highest office in the land, and no matter who holds it, that office must not be dragged through the mud. For the Presidency is representative of all our nation, its people and its principles -- and what effects the Presidency effects all those things.

No. What affects the Sovereign affects all those things. I'd thought that we'd left monarchism behind us. Our soverignty is not manifest in any one geezer -- or any one office, even if you capitalize it.


And once again we are left to wonder whether having one person serve both as head of government AND head of state was such a wise idea after all...


Mary

[LibLabUK]

8. Sorry to interupt a serious discussion but...

"I'd thought that we'd left monarchism behind us."

I originally read that as "monorchism" and was quite amused.

[iverglas]

11. and of course the thing is

What affects the Sovereign affects all those things.

If the sovereign of a modern (constitutional) monarchy ever did anything like the things that Nixon did, the monarchy itself would collapse.

Fortunately, the sovereigns in modern monarchies don't have the power to do any of that stuff. I mean, sure, they could bug people's homes -- but so could you and I. But in both cases, there wouldn't be much point.

And they sure as hell can't bomb small countries into submission, or arm fascist militias to the teeth ...


And once again we are left to wonder whether having one person serve both as head of government AND head of state was such a wise idea after all

Absolutely. It's a whole lot easier to keep the position separate from the person when they're actually separate, as Nixon would have been separate from the position of head of state if he'd been only head of government.

And life is just so much more fun when you can throw a pie in the face of your Prime Minister without being ... unpatriotic. ;)








http://www.turkishdailynews.com/old_editions/08_18_00/for2.htm



http://bioticbakingbrigade.org/bbbgallery4.html

[Vladimir]

7. Interestingly this is very much the position

Clinton takes, perhaps somewhat predictably, in his autobiography. The crux of the position, and the problem with it, lies in the following:

"President Ford pardoned Nixon because a criminal prosecution (indeed, any prosecution) would have further divided an already divided nation.

President Ford also pardoned Nixon because the Presidency is the highest office in the land, and no matter who holds it, that office must not be dragged through the mud. For the Presidency is representative of all our nation, its people and its principles -- and what effects the Presidency effects all those things."

The problem is twofold. Firstly, one could take the dogmatic position that all criminals must be treated in the same way, and that for anyone to evade the law is tantamount to creating a special class of people - in this case presidents - which runs completely contrary to the spirit of the constitution. But even if one wished to be pragmatic, more was probably lost than gained through Nixon's pardon. The presidency had been dragged through the mud for months at that point, and a trial (if kept reasonably short, via a plea bargain or similar) would have had not only the effect of justice being done, but more importantly justice being seen to be done. The presidency was, IMO, infinitely more tarnished in retrospect by the pardon than it would ever have been by any trial...

[iverglas]

9. long live constitutional monarchy

As long as a head of state is de rigueur in order for a state to function, gimme one with no power whatsoever, hence no opportunity for corruption.

Cdn. Governor General Adrienne Clarkson (oh look, a head of state who is a woman of colour) may spend a bit too much money on plane tickets, but that I can live with. The Queen ... well, she minds her own business.


I'm not sure what this post is doing. But I'm seeing an eerie resemblance to what some folks said about Augusto Pinochet. And in the pardoning of Nixon, I'm seeing just another corrupt government shielding itself from being held accountable for its own wrongdoing by whatever government the people might have elected to replace it. (Gerald Ford certainly had not been elected at the point when he pardoned his recently former boss. He was acting under no public mandate to deal with any former government; he was literally just the old boss same as the new boss, and what he did was utterly anti-democratic.)

And in the US as in Chile, I'm not seeing that anything was accomplished by pardoning Nixon in terms of unifying that "already divided nation", other than to apply a very thin and false veneer to its surface.

http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/americas/chile/

After Chile's return to democracy, these crimes were not prosecuted. Before leaving power, the military government had established an imposing set of political, legal and institutional protections meant to shield officials from justice. These protections included an amnesty decree that barred the prosecution of human rights crimes committed from 1973 to 1978, the period in which the worst political repression took place.

The decree was imposed after four-and-a half-years during which Chile was governed under a state of siege. It has never been submitted to a vote. U.N. treaty bodies and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have found it to be incompatible with Chile´s international obligation to try and punish those responsible for the grave human rights violations committed under military rule.

It has only been in the past few years, since Pinochet's landmark 1998 arrest in London, that Chile has made substantial progress in holding accountable those responsible for crimes committed under military rule. ...

Maybe the U.S. will catch up some day.

[TheRovingGourmet]

10. I thought this was going to be a story about my old neighborhood. :)