In the last few days, I have read many blogs, articles and comments about Gerald Fords passing. I don't really want to write too much about the man. He was a moderate Republican, chosen by Nixon to erase the blight of the scandal plagued demagogic Spiro Agnew when he was forced to resign. He seemed to be a nice guy, but a real team player. He advanced the careers of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney...When Nixon resigned, he fell upward into the presidency. His first act was to pardon Nixon. The words, "Our national nightmare is over!" have been quoted over and over again in the pieces I have read. The consensus is that it was a good thing to spare America the trauma of Nixon being impeached.
I read in many other articles about the rising crime rate in America and the same people screaming to bring back the death penalty and how we are too soft on Crime.
Why the apparent double standard? Nixon violated our Constitution. He committed acts that were worthy of a dictator. His actions harmed America as a nation. Yet, he walked and was rehabilitated to the status of senior statesman...a honored sage figure who faded softly in the distance and had a State Funeral and his rather spiffy library in Yorba Linda, California.
I say this was a very bad example to career criminal presidents who might be following him. We have a serial constitutional rapist in the whitehouse who thinks that he can do what ever he wants and walk! Why? Because Gerald Ford was SOFT ON CRIME!
3 comments:
Yes - that library in Yorba Linda is quite spiffy. I live about a half hour from that creepy place.
I saw an old Gerald Ford interview the other day (C-SPAN turned into the Ford Channel this week) and he talked about the pardon.
Ford said that, in the days after he took office, the only issue the media wanted to discuss was Watergate. He couldn't get them to focus on his agenda to move on. He said one day he just figured the only way to move them forward was to pardon Nixon, so he did. That way, the story was dead and they'd have to write about the Ford administration and not Nixon.
I can't stand the fact that Nixon wasn't held accountable, but I also see where Ford was coming from. I guess it's a case of the lesser of two evils.
excuses, excuses, that's all I get from you Liberal soft on crime sissies!
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