I can’t possibly disagree more. I don’t think you understand how restrictive an actual prison is. The man got to live out his days eating good food, going where he wanted, and doing what he wanted. We should all be so lucky to be able to do that at the cost of merely getting some dirty looks here and there.
Given the war and the oil embargo and everything else that was going on at the time
I don’t see how pardoning Nixon helped solve any of that or how they make the pardon any less of a travesty.
Ford gained nothing by the pardon
You know, other than the part where he only got to be president in the first place by making an agreement with Nixon that if he resigned, he’d get a pardon. He got to bail out his buddy and set an example for the rest of his Republican pals that breaking the law is fine, we’ll cover for you from the very top levels of government! No matter what the general public might have thought of it, the people within the party saw it as a huge service to their political machine.
Nixon got to live out his days comfortable, happy, and carefree. “He did not even have a state funeral.” Give me a break. By this logic, Trump doesn’t really need to be prosecuted! He already lost one election, and if he loses the next, he won’t have what’s REALLY important to him, and isn’t that punishment enough?
Of course not. Heinous crimes were committed against the integrity of our country’s ability to have democratic elections, and actual, real, legal conquences MUST follow, or the next asshole will comfortably push things even harder. It’s thanks in part to Nixon’s pardon that the rest of the republicans today are so happy to join hands around their lies about the election being stolen and the Jan 6 rioters being on a tour. They’d never have gotten here so easily without the precedent they have of covering for each other no matter what, no matter how serious, and no matter how high the office.
I can’t possibly disagree more. I don’t think you understand how restrictive an actual prison is.
None of the Nixon co-conspirators went to actual prison; they went to Club Fed.
If you want to know exactly how it was, no need to guess. Chuck Colson wrote a book about his experiences there.
You know, other than the part where he only got to be president in the first place by making an agreement with Nixon that if he resigned, he’d get a pardon.
He was already VP, and you have no idea what you’re talking about. Literally. You have zero idea of how widely these people were hated. Ford was an incumbent Republican and should have won re-election by a landslide. Instead, he did not win at all. And he had no choice but to run because without him the Republicans had no viable candidate at all.
When Nixon resigned, there were no charges against him, only against his co-conspirators, and there was zero guarantee that there ever would be. Nixon literally had NOTHING to give Ford except the promise to get out of town and at least not destroy what was left of the office and his party.
You should at least read more about what actually happened from people who were there. This conjecture about a pardon deal – that you can’t even back up with so much as a guess at a REAL quid pro quo and from which Ford got nothing but the retirement he was looking for anyway – was the product of later conspiracies, not current events in 1974.
And you have no idea how Ford even came to be VP, do you, or how that plays into this at all? Nope. Not a clue.
I don’t see how pardoning Nixon helped solve any of that or how they make the pardon any less of a travesty.
I know. You’re far too busy judging the 1970s by 21st century ideals.
Heinous crimes were committed against the integrity of our country’s ability to have democratic elections, and actual, real, legal conquences MUST follow, or the next asshole will comfortably push things even harder.
On this we completely agree. There is NO comparison between Nixon and Trump, and I made that clear. It’s a shame you had to ignore that and create a strawman to slay to get to this sentence, because I’d have agreed with you anyway.
And just so we’re clear: the most the Republican senators of August, 1974 ever did was withdraw their support for Nixon’s presidency in the face of an impeachment. Nixon resigned. There is NO guarantee whatsoever that any of them would have followed up with anything more, and to pretend so is just one more demonstration of you ignorance of history.
I can’t possibly disagree more. I don’t think you understand how restrictive an actual prison is. The man got to live out his days eating good food, going where he wanted, and doing what he wanted. We should all be so lucky to be able to do that at the cost of merely getting some dirty looks here and there.
I don’t see how pardoning Nixon helped solve any of that or how they make the pardon any less of a travesty.
You know, other than the part where he only got to be president in the first place by making an agreement with Nixon that if he resigned, he’d get a pardon. He got to bail out his buddy and set an example for the rest of his Republican pals that breaking the law is fine, we’ll cover for you from the very top levels of government! No matter what the general public might have thought of it, the people within the party saw it as a huge service to their political machine.
Nixon got to live out his days comfortable, happy, and carefree. “He did not even have a state funeral.” Give me a break. By this logic, Trump doesn’t really need to be prosecuted! He already lost one election, and if he loses the next, he won’t have what’s REALLY important to him, and isn’t that punishment enough?
Of course not. Heinous crimes were committed against the integrity of our country’s ability to have democratic elections, and actual, real, legal conquences MUST follow, or the next asshole will comfortably push things even harder. It’s thanks in part to Nixon’s pardon that the rest of the republicans today are so happy to join hands around their lies about the election being stolen and the Jan 6 rioters being on a tour. They’d never have gotten here so easily without the precedent they have of covering for each other no matter what, no matter how serious, and no matter how high the office.
None of the Nixon co-conspirators went to actual prison; they went to Club Fed.
If you want to know exactly how it was, no need to guess. Chuck Colson wrote a book about his experiences there.
He was already VP, and you have no idea what you’re talking about. Literally. You have zero idea of how widely these people were hated. Ford was an incumbent Republican and should have won re-election by a landslide. Instead, he did not win at all. And he had no choice but to run because without him the Republicans had no viable candidate at all.
When Nixon resigned, there were no charges against him, only against his co-conspirators, and there was zero guarantee that there ever would be. Nixon literally had NOTHING to give Ford except the promise to get out of town and at least not destroy what was left of the office and his party.
You should at least read more about what actually happened from people who were there. This conjecture about a pardon deal – that you can’t even back up with so much as a guess at a REAL quid pro quo and from which Ford got nothing but the retirement he was looking for anyway – was the product of later conspiracies, not current events in 1974.
And you have no idea how Ford even came to be VP, do you, or how that plays into this at all? Nope. Not a clue.
I know. You’re far too busy judging the 1970s by 21st century ideals.
On this we completely agree. There is NO comparison between Nixon and Trump, and I made that clear. It’s a shame you had to ignore that and create a strawman to slay to get to this sentence, because I’d have agreed with you anyway.
And just so we’re clear: the most the Republican senators of August, 1974 ever did was withdraw their support for Nixon’s presidency in the face of an impeachment. Nixon resigned. There is NO guarantee whatsoever that any of them would have followed up with anything more, and to pretend so is just one more demonstration of you ignorance of history.