Wes wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote:

Ed Huntress and I had an extended conversation a while ago and his
take was that it it's just bad to put Presidents in jail for stuff
they do in office. He didn't really argue the merits, however. My
point at the time was that had Ford not Pardonned Nixon, Nixon might
well have been tried and convicted - thereby setting an example that
his successors would have heeded regarding the law.

Gerald Ford did the right thing.

Even Ford rethought his decision Wes. He said as much in the last interviews
he did. Nixon missrepresented the actual facts to Ford and otherwise played
him like a fiddle. Ford was a little PO'd when he realized - years later -
what had happened. It also wasn't the first time Ford had been had by Nixon.

He was a pretty savvy politician
and had to know he would never be elected after that.

I don't know about that. A lot of well researched writing supports your
opinion but that same writing and thinking indicates that the economy was
what killed Ford's electoral prospects, not the Nixon pardon. That also
happens to be what I believe. That and Ford wouldn't ruthlessly employ what
we today call "The Southern" strategy that was one of the things that got
Nixon elected in the first place.

I well remember those years Wes. I'd voted for Nixon and thought he'd gotten
a bumb wrap at the time.
Then he started doing things. Bad things. You probably don't know about the
"Saturday Night Masacre" at Justice but I remember that, and other things
that were done, as though they happened yesterday.

Nixon wasn't in trouble for the break in at the Watergate Hotel Wes. That
couldn't have reached into the Oval Office in a million years.
He was removed from office because of the things he subsequently either did
or ordered done. Nixon, as President of the United States, placed himself
above the law. It's worth noting that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle and a bunch of
other people that had high positions in the administration of Bush jr. were
all introduced to political office as members of the Nixon administration.

That's why I believe we need to prosecute a President who ignores the law or
perverts justice and our system beyond a certain point as Dubya Bush did.
Dick Cheney has repeatedly stated over the years that Nixon's mistake wasn't
in breaking the law, it was getting caught. Ole Dick must have been close to
a coronary when Bush jr. said on one day that wiretaps were illegal without
a warrant and on the very next admitted -ON TEEVEE- that his administration
had been doing just that for years. I can dig up the text if you'd like.

The same was true with torture and interrogations as well as our invasion of
Iraq.


Nixon wasn't paranoid, he knew they were out to get him.

Nixon was quite literally insane Wes.
"They", meaning the other side, being "out to get you" is an occupational
hazard of politics in America.
It's what political party's do.


--
John R. Carroll