I Blame Gerald Ford

Looking over the increasingly dystopian political landscape in the US, I have reached the conclusion that it’s former President Gerald Ford who deserves the blame for our predicament. I also know that bashing the dead is never a popular approach, but let me walk you through my thinking.

Ford got the job of Vice President under Nixon because Nixon appointed him to fill out the term of Spiro Agnew – who resigned the Vice Presidency after being forced to resign because he plead no contest to a single felony charge of tax evasion after years of DoJ investigations of his receiving kickbacks as both Baltimore County Executive and Governor of Maryland. Kickbacks that allegedly continued into his Vice Presidency (one wonders what James Comer and Jim Jordan would have to say about impeaching him). Whether he knew it or not, Ford was walking into a criminal White House; The Watergate scandal broke soon after he took office as VP, and he was elevated to the Presidency in August 1974 – before he could take up residency at the VP’s official home in the U.S. Naval Observatory.

Where Ford got us off the rails was his ensuing and quick pardon of Nixon:

On September 8, 1974, Ford issued Proclamation 4311, which gave Nixon a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes he might have committed against the United States while president. In a televised broadcast to the nation, Ford explained that he felt the pardon was in the best interests of the country, and that the Nixon family’s situation “is a tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must.”

>Heavily criticized at the time – Wikipedia quotes the NYT thusly editorialized against the pardon as a:

“profoundly unwise, divisive and unjust act” that in a stroke had destroyed the new president’s “credibility as a man of judgment, candor and competence”

Ford nonetheless stuck to his guns, claiming to believe that a pardon signaled a presumption of guilt, and that accepting a pardon meant acknowledging the guilt for the actions pardoned. Me thinks he wasn’t paying attention to Roger Stone.

In his speech announcing the pardon, Ford accurately predicted where TFG claims we are today:

The facts, as I see them, are that a former President of the United States, instead of enjoying equal treatment with any other citizen accused of violating the law, would be cruelly and excessively penalized either in preserving the presumption of his innocence or in obtaining a speedy determination of his guilt in order to repay a legal debt to society.

During this long period of delay and potential litigation, ugly passions would again be aroused. And our people would again be polarized in their opinions. And the credibility of our free institutions of government would again be challenged at home and abroad.

Notice how Ford believed – as TFG does – that prosecuting a President for crimes forces the nation to act in ways that no other citizen would or should have to endure. Notice how Ford believes – as TFG does – that such a prosecution will make us look weak as a nation. And notice how Ford sweeps away – as TFG does – the notion that legal prosecution would bring justice. It’s almost as if Ford didn’t trust America’s democracy to survive. Much like TFG hopes it won’t.

Now to be clear – I believe Nixon was guilty of High Crimes and Misdemeanors, and had he stayed and fought it out I am certain the Senate would have convicted him. Further, I strongly suspect the DoJ would have carried out subsequent investigations and prosecutions of Nixon for directing Watergate – much as Jack Smith now does with TFG.

I also firmly believe Ford’s willful naivete about what would happen by holding a former President to account opened the door to our current state of play, where TFG dares America on a daily basis to reign him in. So far, all the dire consequences Ford predicted for Nixon are coming true precisely BECAUSE TFG has not been called to account.

Which begs the question of whether we will remain equally as naïve as a nation and let TFG skate simply because we don’t think our Nation can stand the repercussions.