Is Gerald Ford responsible for Hillary/Bill/Bush/Reagan?

When president Ford pardoned President Nixon did that send a message to future presidents/elected officials that they are above the law?

Now, Therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.

After all, Nixon was pardoned for the good of the country, we Americans are delicate and surely this would have plunged us into a country wide death spiral. So Nixon walked free to keep the poor, fragile and scared American public from jumping off buildings to their deaths because a trial of a US president.

It is believed that a trial of Richard Nixon, if it became necessary, could not fairly begin until a year or more has elapsed. In the meantime, the tranquility to which this nation has been restored by the events of recent weeks could be irreparably lost by the prospects of bringing to trial a former President of the United States.

I can't help but wonder if the Presidents/elected officials knew they where to be held responsible for their actions what kind of world we would have now. Would it be better or worse?
I was 4 years old when this crap sandwich was pushed through, I imagine there was a different feeling toward elected officials, and they took full advantage of the American people's big forgiving hearts.

www.presidency.ucsb.edu...

Quite simply?

No, he is not...

Presidents have been pardoning people since George Washington. Now, I'll grant you, pardoning your predecessor takes it to a whole new level, but at the end of the day, nothing really new happened.

Pardons are political. Or they may be for the right reasons. Or both. History decides that.

a reply to: seasonal

Ford who pardoned Nixon after Watergate (they let Tricky Dick go), Ford who sat on the Warren Commission investigating the Kennedy assassination. Ford who got his turn as presider after Nixon, who was defeated in an election against Kennedy.

Birds of a feather...

a reply to: seasonal

Where Nixon was concerned? Big forgiving hearts? Not so much.

I wasn't very old either, though I wasn't four. Eleven, I think...certainly no older.

It was political in nature, of that there's little doubt.

After Watergate, and the months of hearings, not sure what an impeachment trial would have done.

Don't forget, this was also shortly after Vietnam, and the heights of the Cold War were still to come...

So there might have been, might have been mind you, good and sufficient reason other than political favoritism to pardon him.

Up to you to decide, I guess.

a reply to: seagull

Disagree, people in power need to be above reproach. Are they, no. But when you pardon your former boss it stinks and in this situation (and only this one) that power needs to be removed.

This is so much better than a get out of jail free card, and it seems that the criminal activity just gets worse and worse. At some point some pres will need to be prosecuted.

reagan should have been done for treason over iran contra, he and ollie north should have shared a bullet.

the elder bush was incompetent, the younger bush morso, hardly whitewater.
bill clinton lied about getting a blow job from a fat chack, high treason?

as hard as trump/assange/russia try hillary still hasn't done anything wrong, legally, her moral compass is obviously skewed however, if your gonna put on trial prospective presidents for character issues, well donald trump.

the problem, as shown by trump, isn't just politicians.
as soon as the privileged get some form of power they want more.

a reply to: seagull

After Watergate, and the months of hearings, not sure what an impeachment trial would have done.

It would have precluded a pardon. Thus the resignation.

a reply to: seasonal

Of course they should be. Who's job is it to ensure that?

Who allows them to act as they do? Who doesn't hold them accountable?

He was definitely in cahoots with them. Let's see he was on the Warren commission to help bush Sr cover the jfk assassination. So he got to play president as a reward for that, he also liked to bang the same mind control slaves and run in the same circles.

a reply to: Phage

You're right. I was, sort of, referencing to the psyche of the country.

I was very young at that time. I found it very annoying that the hearing kept me from my cartoons, so my take on the mind set of the country is, to say the least, skewed.

a reply to: seagull

Me

a reply to: seasonal



...and me.

From the perspective of someone who was not four years old at the time, but a voting adult, my perspective is not of the usual, "He shoulda done this. He shoulda done that" variety. The country, as a whole, was exhausted. Watergate had taken years to unfold and parts of it were as mean and nasty as you see in politics today. The country was still in the aftermath of Vietnam where 58,000 guys my age were killed for nothing but geopolitics and a proxy war. We were also in the middle of an economic crisis with extremely high inflation. My mortgage, for example, had an interest rate over 10%. Ford's administration was a brief interlude of what amounted to a few months before we elected Jimmy Carter, a "hope and change" president who wound up presiding ineptly over the Iran hostage debacle and failing utterly. Can you imagine putting the country through a circus trial in the midst of all that? Maybe you think that would have been a hoot, but most people were quite tired of Nixon, Watergate, the hooting vultures circling overhead. The fact that Nixon was forced to resign many thought was punishment enough. They just wanted him to go away and leave us alone. Frankly, Nixon's pardon was a great relief.

I don't really care whether you agree with this perspective or not. It happened before most of you were born. I thought you might gain some insight into the issue from someone who was actually there and lived through it--not just read it in the history books. Carry on. I'm not going to argue about it, At this point I really don't care.

a reply to: schuyler

That's certainly how my parents looked at it.

They just wanted it over, and Nixon gone.

a reply to: seagull

I was fascinated by it, being a college boy who had come out pretty well with the lottery when my year arrived. I had no love of the man.

I remember my grandmother had idolized Nixon and my dad saying words to the effect "I'm glad she didn't have to see this." (She had passed away)

I've read fairly extensively on the US presidents, and have never found mention of Gerald Ford being anything other than a man of incredible integrity and character, whether fit for the job or not.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

But he fell down a lot.

He fell pretty much into the "mostly harmless" category. We needed that.

a reply to: Phage

My folks were split on him.

My dad liked him. My mom, to put it politely, did not. At least after all this broke. She may have voted for him, I honestly don't know whether she did or not, she'd never say, but after Watergate broke and some revelations came out...whatever support she once had was gone.

It was years before she got back into politics. We were both Gary Hart delegates. So it took her a while.

a reply to: schuyler

Of course a trial of Nixon would have been tough, but by not doing the correct thing look at the rot we are living with now. Kick the can down the road, seems like a popular idea.

little off topic
We did the same thing with the banking "crisis" starting in 2008. Do you think a day of financial reckoning (or war) is or isn't on the horizon? Trillions of $ were/are spent are we safe from banks doing the wrong things again?