50 years later, here we are. Because Ford didn't have balls to have Nixon prosecuted. I was all of 20 years old and thought to myself "That's going to come back and bite us in the ass"
Or are we here because they never actually stopped working on their long-term project of undermining democracy to make themselves rich and powerful at the expense of our institutions and citizens? And they never stopped using the Nixonesque “dirty tricks” in the intervening decades? Roger Stone was on Team Nixon and he was, and still is, on Team Trump.
That bimbo ignoramus has managed to piss off enough "regular Republicans" - who still exist in Arizona - that she is already "in the hole" against Gallego. She should never have left the news reader bid'nezz.
Why does it seem that female republicans have the urge to outdo the male republicans in the race to the bottom. Trying to impress the “ladies man” (aka sexual predator) chump or just too stupid to know how they put people’s teeth on edge with every syllable.
JD, " The race to the bottom." Such an appropriate description of Trump's run to become the leader of our nation. In his efforts to win with his despicable, illegal and immoral rhetoric and actions, he has managed to drag to the bottom the people that I used to respect and admire. The House Republicans, with MTG, Goetz, Boebert in the lead, have joined in this race to reach the finish line, having cheated their way the entire distance. Wouldn't those who broke the rules of a marathon, be disqualified?? How in this world have we allowed such cheating, such unprofessional words and actions to have even a chance of winning a race " Of the people, By the people, For the people."
As for Nixon and his presidential race and journey, I can say, "The more things change, the more they stay the same,"
Shame on all those Trump lovers and supporters for encouraging and cheering him on in "the race to the bottom."
Some people I used to respect and admire. Hurts my heart that people fall for such obvious false prophets and behave in ways that I abhor. Maybe a tad of soft racism is at the core, or self-righteous fear of the other. Unhealed wounds leave people vulnerable to evangelical crap. Greed is competition at a basic level. I see so much that I abhor in people I have loved, that it makes me wonder if I am as blind as they are.
tRump is nothing without millions of Americans who want to see a wannabe as president. The only thing tRump wants is to stay out of prison and steal as much money as he can on his way to prison. As for the immunity defense goes, insurrection is not among presidential duties, nor are stealing classified documents.
Some things change, such as the age of the dinosaurs. Human nature does not seem to change much. Cultures change and mores change, but the Jekyll/Hyde part seems evident even in ancient texts as much as in the "news". It has been argued, PBS Nova did a two hr. special on it, that casual violence has become less common over the centuries, but there is never any lack of people eager to commit it. Violent urges seems to spread like a virus sometimes. Germany, Italy, and Japan were in the throes of it in the Axis days. Our history documents our own society's crimes against humanity, and they are not done. Social justice is energy intensive.
I have had the experience, as apparently many others who respond to blogs such as this, of knowing someone who used to seem pleasant and reasonable who is now hostile and cut off from anyone who isn't foaming MAGA. That too is an established pattern of human behavior, and a highly problematic one having to do with cults.
Valentina Gomez did this in her overtly antigay campaign to become Missouri’s next Secretary of State, and she only got 7.2 percent of the vote. Her campaign went over like a lead balloon. She deserved to lose.
Glad to hear that she lost! And, I guess I'm showing my ageism ("youthism"), but I find it hard to imagine how a 25 year old could possibly have enough experience to be Attorney General of a state...
How about minorities supporting the like of tRump. If the advancement of minorities rights has not been fully manifest blame the party that champions minority's rights and support the party that if they had their way would own slaves. That is what one calls logic?
Just speculating (wink, wink), they are the true "trans" people! All the worst characteristics of Trump have infiltrated some women who try to outdo their male counterparts, no doubt for the same reasons: greed and infamy.
Have you ever seen the movie BlacKkKlansman? (John David Washington, Adam Driver) Don't want to spoil it, but I was shocked to see how one wife of a KKK behaved.
Women also are used to having to excel and exceed men in traditional male endeavors.
Such a corruption of a woman’s attempts at parity and respect as an equal human. No, I didn’t see that, but no surprise. I have an ex-in-law who would equal any man’ racist, self-righteous, religious bull Schitt. So glad she’s an ex
JD....these females think that being tough in an obnoxious way is somehow going to enhance them politically. They only succeed when they are in deep red districts like Gangrene. Harris and pols like Pelosi stand in complete contrast to them.
It seems that they hate being female and try to emulate the worst of the Repub men. Women reportedly have a smidge of empathy, even posers. They will never be decent men or women. And the poorest excuse for mothers
We are in an age when we have the ability to pick apart every sentence anyone has said in public to try to misconstrue the meaning and turn it into a lie.
This is not about a pattern of habitually and repeatedly lying for convenience and advantage, i.e. 30,000 lies. It's about can we find something to criticize and exaggerate it.
Walz may be human but he is not a liar. Please take your trolling elsewhere.
Mr. Crespi, in this community facts matter. Mr Waltz never lied about his service. Please get this straight. Trump has appointed the man who devised the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry as one of the heads of his reelection campaign. This chap is using the the same vicious, unfounded approach against Waltz. Don’t be a sucker. And certainly don’t bring this smack into this community. Do a little reading, sir.
Walz has NOT lied. He retired initially and then 911 happened and he re-enrolled. Five years later he resigned, and then his unit was called to deploy 2 months later. At the time he retired a second time, his unit had not been notified that they were going to be deployed. Walz retired as Command Sergeant Major on 5-15-05. His rank was later changed to Master Sergeant for retirement benefit purposes, because he did not complete required additional coursework. You should read sourced info about him. Fox Spews & Co lie consistently and repeatedly as their MO. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Walz
This military record business strikes a powerful chord in me, although I know need to tread lightly in expressing myself. Mr. Vance and Mr Walz both served in the military during a time when Americans in general were distancing themselves from our soldiers and their ‘activities' - particularly those in the Army and Marine Corps.
I was there at the beginning of that separation. I served on active duty in the Army from 1967-71, a time when our military men and women were coming under increasing fire at home because of the changing national mood over the war in Vietnam. The recent death of William Calley, who became the 'poster boy' for all the mistakes we made over there has brought all that back to me in a very uncomfortable way.
I came of age in the years following our victory in WWII when the military was renowned for what we’d accomplished - The actions of the so-called Greatest Generation.
This began to come apart barely five years later during the murkiness of the Korean War, particularly following the Chinese invasion when the continual see-saw of ground gained, given up, regained, regained, regiven up, all while the casualty count mounted began to seem pointless; only ending in an endless stalemate which continues to this day.
Vietnam, begun with such hype about dominoes and all that rapidly deteriorated into a quagmire in which we struggled in darkness allied with a nation whose rotating leaders increasingly lacked the support of their people, fighting an implacable enemy who were everywhere and nowhere. 50,000 of my generation died over there in what was increasingly perceived at home as a fruitless exercise in national folly about which our own government had consistently lied to us. Its grim end (for us) was far more costly and humiliating than our withdrawal from Afghanistan.
We have advanced little if at all since then. We continue to send our men and women into equally murky battlefields far from home with ill-defined goals, allied with corrupt governments who seem to lack the will to do what they are demanding we do for them, and unable to understand, as we did not in Vietnam, that our military is not designed for nation building, only for destruction.
I grew up thinking that military service was an honorable profession, and when our soldiers are used for rational and clearly defined purposes, it most certainly is. But we seem to have forgotten what that kind of rationality and clarity consist of, and so for over half a century, that honor has been so compromised as to have made us withdraw from those we have asked to serve and to risk their lives for purposes which seem at best unconvincing and at worst a unforgivable waste of young lives.
So all this brouhaha about the comparative services of Mr. Vance and Mr Walz strikes me as so much useless blather. They served in a military without defined goals and for a country which couldn’t seem to understand what we had sent them 'over there’ to do. Why then should we now demand some sort of proof of honor in their service?
Better compared to Trump's fake " bone spurs." I've not seen a thing that doubts Walz's military and public service record. Don't be part of the problem and always check your sources!
There are two choices , that’s it. If it’s Trump , who from the get go YEARS before his failed Presidency lied, and continued to lie, and still lies…not forgetting all the other underhandedness plus his merry sycophant trove…
Although stopping dangerous people is necessary, the only thing that is sufficient is going upstream and figuring out why people decide to become immoral.
With a very small number of psychopathic exceptions, people don’t become immoral in a vacuum. Almost all of us are born moral, then some people decide to become immoral, and then a few immoral people keep going in that direction until they become dangerous.
So, how does one distinguish between a moral act and an immoral act? A moral act adheres to the “treat others the way you would want to be treated if the shoe was on the other foot” principle, and an immoral act violates that principle. Here’s the trick. If a person is adhering to the moral principle, then they’re almost certainly thinking “How do I adhere to the principle in this context?” If they’re violating the principle, then they’re thinking something else.
Defeating MAGA in November is necessary, but not sufficient. What is necessary and sufficient is recognizing that violating the moral principle, even in small ways, can have enormous long-term negative consequences. I wouldn't say that if I didn't think it was necessary.
IMHO, President Biden, VP Harris, Governor Walz, the Biden administration, and everyone in senior leadership within the Democratic party that I’m aware of have been modeling how to adhere to the moral principle in extraordinarily difficult conditions.
Why is virtually everyone in a leadership position in the 2024 version of the Republican party, their billionaire donors, and two thirds of SCOTUS no longer just immoral, but now also dangerous? Because of the butterfly effect. Specifically, violating the moral principle, even in small ways, can have enormous long-term negative consequences.
James, Robert Reich addressed this in his Substack this morning as part of his series on economic myths. The video at this link is for his paid subscribers only, but the post is available to everybody:
Spot on. In addition to Reich's idea that gross inequality is the enemy of democracy, I'll add that it's also the enemy of real capitalism, the idea that competition is good. And phony capitalism, the idea that killing off the competition is good, is another name for the same enemy.
James I believe that the republicans who do become immoral think that the Democrats have committed immoral acts and therefore the Republican side has to do the same. I also believe that since the days of Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn who also advised Trump certain factions have used propaganda to foo l large segments of the American people into supporting right wing causes. Who are these people who believe they can use lies to convince voters who seem to be poorly informed into voting in a way that hurts them?
John, I assume we are on the same page, and that your question is rhetorical given that you've listed some of those people, but the question is, how do they get away with it? And my answer to that is in the comment you replied to, and in your reply. And that answer is the butterfly effect, aka getting away with taking advantage of people in small ways and mistakenly assuming that's the end of it.
Born moral? That would be nice if true. I guess it would also require that morality is somehow imprinted in our genes. Since we share over 90% our genetic makeup with other living creatures, I guess most everything from housecats to garden slugs to mold are more or less moral?
We Homo sapiens share 99.9% of our genetic makeup. The genetic diversity of eight billion humans is miniscule compared to the genetic diversity of an average troop of baboons. Housecats, garden slugs, baboons, and chimpanzees don't need morality. We do. See my longer response to Patricia Davis.
A conscience, is it innate? The mixed messages received in childhood create problems initially, good parenting is key but not rare. The majority does well. Obvious the minority can raise havoc. To let them get away with it..is a substantial factor. How many of the inmates did wrong compared to those that turned their head or as is well know are the white collar criminals. Accountability , consequences, and here we are …’ the truths are held self evident ‘…still.
In addition to agreeing with every thing you say, I'd argue that the evidence is in favor of the idea that conscience is an innate trait specific to our species. What change happened at the origin of our species? Why did we stop living in single-family social systems? Why were our earliest post-origin ancestors the first to form a multi-family social system, aka the hunter-gatherer band?
For the record, a troop of chimpanzees is a fission-fusion society, and a chimp social system is a mother and her juvenile offspring.
The following is from renown anthropologist Christopher Boehm's Hierarchy in the Forest (Harvard University Press, 1999), page 5. "Humans were egalitarian for thousands of generations before hierarchical societies began to appear."
Note that our species has been on the planet for some twelve thousand generations, and the earliest "agricultural settlement" hierarchical societies where only about 400 generations ago.
That seems to explain the media -- having rid themselves of the obligation to rigorously provide truthful information and adopting the ethos of doing anything for money provides much lift for that butterfly effect....
Shout out to Lawrence O'Donnell for his August 8 "Last Word" editorial calling out the MSM [including MSNBC] for yesterday's gutless coverage of what passes for a Trump press conference.
O'Donnell seems to have given a reason for why the media is so gutless -- that they are just as stupid as Trump, that they aren't as smart as Biden or Harris or Walz -- maybe it's too much like work to actually provide us truthful information that the citizenry of this country needs to fulfill the goals stated by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to govern this country of themselves for themselves, by themselves.
The media doesn't understand that they will be culled by the fascist autocrat dictator they are enabling.
Are you certain “strumpet” is a welcome and intelligent term here? It reeks of sexism and misogyny and destroys any effort to contribute meaningfully to the conversation!
Unfortunately, in order to keep our country moving forward, with a Democracy, we will never be able to keep our eyes off of the likes of Kari Lake and those that follow her. For a while, it thought we could bullet proof democracy....but I think we can only raise the guardrails.
There are plenty of wannabe dictators out there that recongnize how unruly democracy is and that dictators know how to get things done. Minor problem is you do not want to be on the wrong side when the dictator dejour needs to quell opposition.
Terri, I understand Lake is attractive. It seems for Republican women, that's all that counts, and that they will say and do almost anything (maybe anything) for their Baby Donnie. Certainly not much of a qualification to hold office.
At least the original Dirty trickster, Donald Segretti, regretted his actions, so I read. But his tricks are some of what Karl Rove used in Texas in 1994 to foist W on gullible Texans. Rove and Gingrich and a host of others used Reagan’s Oscar-level performance as president to do Nixon one better. And they have
Yep, in a Netflix special some years ago, he bragged that he learned that lies worked better and usually people didn’t know the difference. He has honed his skills and I blame him for the 2000 debacle, the Al Franklin debacle and others that I suspect. Of course, he has taught plenty of others.
Shall we end it? If there isn’t enough paying attention we can suffer as history well documents ..again …each time it affects a little more of our world …it’s all related .. 💙VOTE💙
I always gave NANCY credit for his greedy evil. Somewhere he learned to use Rupert’s money stealing skills (and his lying megaphone) for killing our middle class.
"......but the tapes revealed a mean-spirited, foul-mouthed bully."
Sound like anyone we know?
Convicted Felon Donald Trump is always in attack mode spewing misinformation. He uses words like "everyone knows" or "people say" when all those are just ghosts in his abnormal brain.
Right now Harris and Walz have center stage and are talking policy and working for the American people. DonOld NEVER talks policy unless it's to say, "I'm going to Make America Great Again."
When is the media going to chastise him for doing nada, zero, zilch to make America great?
His "great" accomplishment for 4 years was to give his billionaire friends and large corporations huge tax breaks. And to fill the courts with far right religious zealots who could care less about the US Constitution.
But instead the MSM keeps repeating his sophomoric jibes like we haven't heard it all before. If we wanted to hear it we could watch elementary school kids during recess.
Nixon knew people would not like the way he talked off the public stage and tried to keep it private, but the people who back the ex-president seem to embrace trash talk. Bewildering. Not the people I want in charge. I am so proud of Walz and the focus on what he has accomplished here in Minnesota. Let's bring good nutrition for kids and privacy in healthcare to the whole country!
I think he knows how to handle juvenile behavior quite well, from his experience in high school lunchroom monitoring. Looking forward to his encounter with Vance!
I'm old. I like to brag about being old. It's an achievement.
Anyway, it's retaliation for all the shite people hurled at Joe as being old, instead of venerating him for his excellent lifetime of service to our nation.
But I agree that "old" should not be used as a pejorative -- it should be used as veneration, or admiration.
Having said all that, 45 deserves "old" as a pejorative because he got old a long time ago.
When it comes to DonOLD the MSM is pretty useless. Watching his press conferences, I'm always pleading, to no avail, for someone to just call him in a lie. Just look him in the face and say, "Sir, that was a lie and you know it." Why is that so difficult for them to do? Is their complicity in the lie easier and they are just too lazy or fearful to do the right thing for their customers, the citizens of America and the world. If so, the whole press corp should resign and let others do the job.
But according to Lawrence O'Donnell's description, in this particular instance Old DonOld had it set up so that we could hear only him, not the reporters. The reporters were at a huge disadvantage. How in the world did all of the networks agree to that, knowing who they were dealing with? That should NEVER have happened 🤬
I believe in freedom of speech. What baffles me is that there does not seem to be exceptions when that so called " free speach" incites violence, civil war, support of enemies, etc. The very biased Supreme Court Judges prefer to cover up treason for fear of loosing their perks and their lifetime jobs.
America had never held traitorous officials accountable. The leadership of the Confederacy should have been imprisoned at the very least. So should its military leaders like Robert E. Lee, who was a "gentleman." Nixon's acceptance of the pardon was an admission of guilt. He wanted to stay out of jail. No person should be persecuted, but being held accountable for illegal actions is NOT persecution. Even a president should be accountable for their actions. It is a betrayal of the oath of office for a president to break the law.
ROY COHN- do not forget this evil. He taught his clients how to ignore, deny, deflect. But, he's dead - Roger Stone is still alive and abusive to our Constitution.
The absolute must-read book is HCR's "How the South Won the Civil War." This "war" between the autocratic oligarchs and democracy has been going on since the inception of the Republic, and even before. Right now 800 Americans have the wealth equal to that of one-half of the American population, i.e. 800 vs. 169,000,000. "Houston, we've got a problem."
A direct line can be drawn from President Ford's ill-conceived pardon of Nixon to the egregious decision of the Supreme Court in Trump v. United States. Had Nixon been prosecuted, the matter of presidential immunity would have been settled at the time and not left to the MAGA majority on the Court 50 years later to create an immunity regime out of whole cloth with no basis in the Constitution. The pardon by Ford and its acceptance by Nixon demonstrated a clear understanding by both men that Nixon did not have the benefit of immunity. It would be an interesting analysis to apply the immunity regime devised by the MAGA majority to Nixon's actions.
The fatal flaw in the Pardon was that it wasn't conditional like a number of ones after the Civil War were.
I hesitate to say it, but there are advantages to letting some top and many lower level former enemies off lightly if it helps stop the endless bitterness and gets the highest percentage of the former civil administrations and citizens back to supporting legitimate governance (like we did in Japan and Germany, and Lincoln tried to do with his "conciliatory plan for reunification of the United States with his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction).
Spiro Agnew got to avoid prison by stepping aside in time to for us to prevent him becoming President after Nixon (a bitter deal for some but just imagine if he hadn't).
I do wish that Ford had imposed conditions at least like those Lincoln would have preferred on ex-confederates (Congress wanted tougher restrictions though).
To me, Grant's terms got us some breathing room and made it easier to curtail initial post war resistance that would have occurred if we imposed harsh conditions.
"...Under the terms of surrender for the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 10, 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant stipulated that "each officer and man will be allowed to return to his home, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside..."
That may well have been a significant contributing factor in saddling us with Trump and the Jan 6 debacle, by setting the precedent that presidents are above the law. That is probably Ford’s real legacy.
Ford didn’t end America’s nightmare by pardoning Nixon, he inadvertently ensured there would be worse.
I think the connection between Nixon /Watergate and today’s mess is generally accurate but much too simplistic. America changed radically in the Sixties. There was a slowly growing tide of people casting off the quiescence of the Fifties. Young people, to their everlasting credit, realized that the massive boom in consumerism in the Fifties had anesthetized the soul of the country. They realized that there were deep gashes in American society and their elders were blinded to them. So they fought back, slowly and tentatively at first, then in larger and more menacing (to the ruling elite) numbers. Racism was the first area of protest mainly due to the immense courage of Black Civil Rights leaders. Then the calamity of the Vietnam War began to become obvious. Slowly the counterculture movement gained an identity, at first one of kind of earnest silliness, then morphing into a serious and threatening force, threatening a complete upheaval of all Americans thought they stood for.
By 1970 the Right was galvanized into a concerted response. Although the hippies were relatively small in number they had immense influence on the American psyche. Suddenly everybody, it seemed, was rebelling. Women’s liberation became a loud and angry issue. Draftees were burning their draft notices. Universities were overrun in a way that would make the protests of this year look timid.
It was in this milieu that the Powell memo was drafted and circulated to corporations, lawyers, judges and all those who had a huge stake in the status quo ante. There was genuine fear at this point that America would be turned into a socialist country, its entire foundational values toppled.
Nixon was a part of this reactionary wave. He rode it hard and then fell through his criminal excesses. Ironically he proved the counterculture right once again, but by now their energy was gone - people were turning to individual expression in a myriad of ways and the fight for the common cause was over.
The Left ceded power to the Right in the Seventies and it has never been taken back. Donald Trump is as much symbol of the Right’s ascendancy as Nixon is now symbolic of its fear in the early Seventies.
Perhaps now, with Biden’s run and hopefully a Harris Presidency, much of the grim overreaction of the last fifty years can be unspooled. America needs this pivotal moment to begin a move back towards the real values and wishes of the Founding Fathers.
Pegged. I might add, so many sensational musicians joined the cause and absolutely altered history. There are Vietnam- and Nixon-era songs that will be played and adored long after most new songs are AI-generated. Canadian-born Neil Young might have tilted the scales with Ohio. American Woman was almost played at the White House before they realized the Canadian band The Guess Who had a completely different message in mind. Much of what John Fogerty had to say and sing about really did change hearts and minds. This is that time for songwriters again.
I wish there was just one lynchpin to the state of SCOTUS now, but there are many. And the greed for money and power is ages old. The nefarious ways to get them is also old. As Thomas shows us, though he is by far not the only one, dangling glitter and luxury can be heavy incentives, and such delectable presents are hard to turn down, especially if they seem to fit your take on this country.
What makes morality? What helps people recognize that power over others is ultimately empty and soul-destroying?
For sure economies that meet needs, equal opportunity social agreements, and top-notch education all help. But I suspect Faustian bargains will be with us for a long time. Which side are you on?
Who is talking about the 200+ criminals and bad actors CFDT pardoned?
!0 of those pardons were criminals that had defrauded around $2 billion from Medicare and Medicaid and some of whom were still behind bars.
How can the GOP claim to be the party of law and order when they condone giving pardons to murderrs, tax evaders, fraudsters, crooks and many other criminal activities?
I was stupid enough to think that they had learned that such horrible actions didn’t pay. Thanks to our press then, it didn’t for them. Our press today is a different animal. Thanks to those who still report the truth. But the major decision makers are cowards and greedy bastards..
Horrible actions do pay, as the history of tyrants and assorted criminals proves, but does so on the backs and unjust deaths of others. That's why it never goes entirely away.
It's up to us as a society to define boundaries of equitable, responsible behavior, and to secure unalienable human rights by means of government that we institute among ourselves, deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed.
I was 11 when Nixon resigned in disgrace and remember watching him announcing his resignation. Unfortunately, the Republicans viewed it as an opportunity rather than as a lesson, and here we are with a Supreme Court majority that is hostile to the very constitutional foundations of our government. The real foundation they seem to have forgotten is that the Founders did not want a theocratic government, and they believed that even the President was subject to the law.
And 50 years down the road, we've got McConnell, Roberts. Thomas, and Alito. It will be many years if ever before the US has regained its integrity. And don't think our allies and enemies don't notice the moral decline in Washington and across our land They have.
I was in my early 20s too -- I was in grad school in London and stayed up to hear the resignation on the radio. And then when Ford let it all 'go away' I felt sunk.
Ironically at 29, three days after celebrating my birthday, I recall saying to myself and a few friends: “this [that] can’t be good”, why did Ford do that … and look at where we are now as compared to then, “… but when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal”, Richard M. Nixon to David Frost in 1977.
B.L.U.F. (bottom-line, up-front):I was angry as a seventeen year old that President Ford did not wait until President Nixon were convicted. I was wrong.
WRONG
President Ford was the best president in my life-time. Pursuing criminal charges would have taken way too long and inflamed the country into the type of violence we may be facing today. Dr Cox Richardson argues that President Ford's pardon basically gave future villains get-out-of-jail free cards. I do not think people think that way when they play fast and loose with the rule of law. Dr Cox Richardson uses the Iran Contra perps getting pardons. They did not receive those pardons for years and only by the intervention of an aggressive Attorney General, William Barr, when President G.H.W. Bush was leaving office.
WRONG
Additionally, everyone knew in the country that President Nixon was undoubtedly guilty. Additionally, via the case Burdick vs the United States (1915) acceptance of a pardon carried an imputation of guilt. Lastly, who knew, in 1974, there would be a President Trump, a Senator J.D. Vance, and a whole crop of (wo)men placing their ambitions ahead of principles of republican governance? President Trump plans to make the pardon a get-out-of-jail-free card, not because of what President Ford did but because of who President Trump.
Ned, I wanted to say something in defense of President Ford, but I like what you wrote -- better than what I had in mind. I've seldom agreed with any Republicans, but I admired Gerald Ford as an "Old School" Republican, and a good, decent human. Pardoning Nixon struck me at the time as sort of "meh". What real practical difference did it make? The idea of justice has become, at least for me, a rather tenuous concept. I didn't view Ford's pardon as "what you did was OK" -- I saw it more as "the matter is settled, and we all need to get on with our work". I would be surprised to learn that our current Supreme Court put any value on Ford's pardon as a precedent. This Court is happily making stuff up out of whole cloth. As for Old Don-Old CF45, nothing he's done in his lifetime should have any -- what is the correct term -- probative value? A pardon would be a trump card, taking a trick in a game. No moral dimension.
What a thoughtful response, David. Before I forget and while I have the opportunity finally to do so, thank you so much for referring me over to Joyce Vance's 'Civil Discourse' sub-stack.
🤝
These days, I have to seek out those journalists and thought-leaders whom I trust. With the materials of Dr Cox Richardson, Ms Vance, and Dr Bandy Lee, I am falling behind, in fact drowning. At least, I am going down . . . ¡in a brainy blaze!
😉
Your reaction to the pardon, I suspect, is the one I would have had I been even five years older. Within a year and a half, I felt that President Nixon was more like a tragic hero; I remember telling that to teachers. I voted for President Carter in 1976. While I do not regret that vote, still I felt sad for President Ford.
❤️
¿Who knew how lucky I was that two candidates of so high a calibre opposed each other in the first election in which I participated? Still grateful to this day for that gift. The only other election, at least for me, that presented so high-class a dilemma was in 2008.
🥳
Your assessment of President Ford accords with mine; you articulate it very well. I recently argued for a return to a sense of cooperative conservatism. Frank Loomer nailed that idea in his response to my assertion: that yesterday's liberalism is today's cooperative conservatism. Any lovely who has fox-trotted, waltzed, or jitter-bugged with me has always known that I am, ahem, a step behind. 🤫
Ford kept a copy of the pardon in his pocket and seethed inside every time Nixon implied that it meant he wasn't a criminal. I firmly believe if he had it to do over, it would have come with a few well thought out restrictions.
I assume Ford was chosen to replace Agnew, as being as opposite as you could get from a criminal in my old party.
They really wanted to shut that door that kept letting the storm keep them from any semblance of rational order, trying to deal with Vietnam, the Sinai Interim Agreement, affects of the Oil Embargo, Squeaky Fromme trying to shoot him, etc.
I considered Ford better than Reagan back when my old party wanted them to run together. Ford would never consider being Reagan's VP, and Reagan would never settle for being VP (I believe to anyone). They needed even better pairing to run against Jimmy Carter (but couldn't pull it off with the slickest salesman unwilling to take the back seat.
I do wonder what the "Heir-itage" Foundation thought of Gerald Ford
Unfortunately, much of my response to your thinking is contained in my answer to David H.'s thoughtful response. So less bloviation in no way designates a preference. To your first statement on President Ford keeping a copy of the pardon, this one minute vid. may interest you.
I, too, preferred President Ford over President Reagan; the latter struck me as heartless. This short clip explains my affection for President Ford more than I can ever do.
Ned, I have a few stories to tell. First, thankyou for posting the clips.
It's been a long time since I watched President Ford talking. I was reminded of what it means to be an exemplar of an "Old School" Republican politician. I like to tell the story of what the relationships between the Republicans and the Democrats were like before the period of drastic change in the mid-to-late 1970s. The two sides would argue all day long, but they always remained friends. After a long day doing the work of Congress, it was common for Members from both parties to gather at local "water holes" to joke and laugh and unwind. They and their families were friends, and they would get together for dinner, and go on outings together. Their comity had evidently evaporated by the time Reagan became President. So, for me "old school" refers to that period before Reagan.
On a more personal level, my wife and I travelled to Grand Rapids, Michigan a few years ago, to attend a concert, and to visit several cemeteries where ancestors on my Mother's side were laid to rest. The Gerald Ford Presidential Museum is located adjacent to the big hotel where we stayed. We spent quite a long time visiting the museum. My appreciation and respect for Gerald Ford grew, by a lot. Among other things, he served in the Navy in WWII, aboard a ship in the Pacific theater. At one point the fleet was caught in a typhoon, and his ship was severely damaged. The way I remember it, the ship was an aircraft carrier, and at least one of the planes in the hangar deck broke loose from its restraints, crashed into another plane, and a fire started. So the ship was being tossed about by the Typhoon, and they had to put out the fire. The exhibits in the museum make the story vivid. It must have been a hellscape for Gerald Ford.
The museum is well worth a visit. President Ford and his wife Betty are both buried on the campus of the Ford Museum in Grand Rapids.
And a bit of Substack trivia: we can copy a link to a commenter's post on Substack by right-clicking on the date of the post that appears to the right side of the writer's name.
Thank you for the how-to advice on sourcing the material of others' posts. Your stories warm my heart. My father went to Ann Arbor and had fond memories of visiting college buds in 'G.R.'. A niece gave me this interesting book about the friendship between Speaker O'Neill and President Reagan by Chris Matthews.
I believe one reason that such amity existed is that these Republicans and Democrats had worked together for something larger. The son of Governor Dewey of N.Y. was a friend of mine in N.Y.C. A generous man with views that would fit right in here in this forum.
Anyways, his Republican nephew married Karenna Gore. That amity may still exist; the media, unfortunately, focusses on the nattering nabobs of narcissism like Marjorie flailing *scream, Lauren Baublehead, Shady J.D., and Haz-Matt Gaetz.
Ned, I always enjoy your stories and comments as well.
We hear too few stories about the "Old Days", and the "Old School" politicians, Republicans and Democrats, who would argue and debate with each other all day long, but they (and we) always knew we were on the same side.
Politics. Nixon was a crook, contrary to his assertion. But as I watched, you could see the political dynamics at play. I got started when it was John Dean's turn to testify. Republicans on the committee were eager to shut this down but Dean had come well prepared with his story, his wife and that no-nonsence lawyer behind him. God I loved that guy. And I loved Dean's testimony. Sam Ervin...what a character. Finally, JUSTICE! Yeah, the pardon...politics. I wasn't as prescient as you were. Reagan was still 5 years into the future and that's actually the beginning of the MAGA story. All those phony righteous southern christians, Limbaugh, Lee Atwater and the Clintons, Gingrich, Fox news and on and on. Watergate was the forward or the prelude. The right wing novel was yet to be written. Fascism was going to take time to emerge. The repugs resuscitated Nixon's reputation so he got to die a respected man in the end. SMH. And so now, with trump, I kept waiting for that "Alexander Butterfield" moment. It had to happen, I thought, only a matter of time and he'd be out on his ass and in Jail. It's kind of ironic to say we are a nation of laws. Yeah, we've been bitten on the ass but in less than a hundred days, we have a chance to turn this around or slow it down anyway. There's a lot of America that has to be fixed...a lot.
Ford was the only person ever to serve as United States President, never to be elected as either President or Vice President. He was also, as a congressman, famously described by Lyndon Johnson as "that guy can't walk and chew bubble gum at the same time."
I was 17… really… why does he deserve to be pardoned… I was told by family… you shouldn’t do that to a President… why when laws are broken I asked… well because he is the President was the response… nope no said… trust me at 17 I was unable to articulate a rationale… just knew it shouldn’t matter who you were or what position you held, you should still be held to the same laws……… sigh.. now our SC is saying our presidents are Kings… well, only if they agree with him… absolutely despicable and so UN American
Watergate was this, as Heather so clearly describes - but so much more. Nixon and his close staff and allies were building an imperial presidency, similar to what SCOTUS has just ordained with its presidential immunity decision. Had the Supreme Court 50 years ago been as open to authoritarianism, bigotry, and corruption as the current court, Nixon might have been able to serve out his term, and possibly beyond. We were saved by many people, especially including Frank Wills.
SCOTUS then: [E]xecutive privilege “must be considered in light of our historic commitment to the rule of law. This is nowhere more profoundly manifest than in our view that 'the twofold aim (of criminal justice) is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer.'... The very integrity of the judicial system and public confidence in the system depend on full disclosure of all the facts….”
There were many scoundrels, but quite a few heroes. In addition to those mentioned in this post (Wills, Woodward, Bernstein, Cox, Richardson, Jaworski, Sirica, Ervin, Dean, Butterfield) one could add Peter Rodino, Barbara Jordan, Ben Bradlee, and the Baltimore prosecutors who uncovered the Spiro Agnew bribery scandal that forced him to resign (which led to Ford becoming VP and subsequently President. God only knows what might have happened had Agnew remained as Nixon’s VP.
"....but quite a few heroes. " Yes, then and now such men and women serve this country with wisdom, with great inherent goodness, with their lives and amazing gifts of mind and character!
May God bless and protect each and everyone!!!!
May we too stand up against tyrants who would take this beloved country....this place that offers hope to refugees who long to be free...who long to find work and a place for their families....who long to worship as they choose or not to worship....to live safely with being who they are as human beings. Each and every person should be valued. Each of us make up this nation. We are great due to those who were here before us (Indian nations) and those who have since faced hardship to leave from a place of poverty or dictatorship to come to a place where they are willing to take the most humble jobs to start and build a new life.
We must work within our beings constantly to be persons...to be a country of people who strive to be truth tellers....to respect law and order mixed with compassion. We must each and all work to value and live out these ideals within many of our lives and to expect this type of character to be found and lived out by the leaders who stand as our leaders or we will fall to predators who only care for profit NOW, for themselves.
In order to continue as a great people, as a caring people we must protect our land and the air and the space we are exploring outside of our earth home. We must think of the future we are leaving for the children of this world.
If Agnew had remained as VP, we'd have a better approximation of what it will be like if Vance becomes VP. Ford, I still believe, was a good guy with a strong moral compass.
Maybe that’s why Vance was chosen—knowing the public would never want him as President, it would give us pause to throw Trump in jail (should he be elected and still found guilty of treasonous plots.)
Also, sending the Southern ‘boys’ home may not have been a great idea either. What if we had let the South secede? Their belief of white male superiority was never squelched or even moderated. And now here we are back at the beginning, fighting the same damned fight. Of course all the what if’s in the world don’t amount to a hill of beans. We are served the realities of today and must use our knowledge of past mistakes to make a better country tomorrow than it was or has been up to this point. Harris and Walz seem to be smart and honest. They project ideas of fairness for all citizens, not just the ones willing to pay for power. I am all in on this ticket, hoping they will be elected along with members of Congress devoted to justice. Given that ideal, real positive changes could be made in our laws to prevent another Nixon or Trump from stealing the heart of our country— liberty and the pursuit of happiness for every citizen, no matter their color, religion, age, or economic status—ever again!
Keep going..... our formerly respected Supreme Court has managed to shoot itself in the foot at the bidding of the Federalist Society and the GOP Senate, especially Mitch McConnell. They used to be largely non-partisan and used to respect precedent. Now they rule as though they were beholden to the RNC.
This bit of humor about seceding might tickle your funny bone:
————
Red States Want to Secede? Go Ahead. Make Our Day.
Nearly 1 million Americans have signed petitions calling for secession including over 100,000 in Texas and over 50,000 in Georgia. So, here's a response.
(A poll from Public Policy Polling reports that 25 percent of Republicans would like their state to secede from the Union. Nearly 1 million Americans have signed petitions calling for secession including over 100,000 in Texas and over 50,000 in Georgia. So, cribbing from a viral email that's been making its way around the internet in the spirit of fair use and adding my own evil satiric thoughts, here's a response.)
So some of you patriotic Americans in Red States are so mad that a Kenyan, Muslim, socialist black man got elected President of the USA for a second time that you want to demonstrate your patriotism by seceding from the United States of American? Go ahead. Make our day.
But be careful what you wish for. Here's how it could go down, and it might not be so pretty for you after all is said and done.
We would get the West Coast, all of the Northeast and the upper Midwest.
You would get Texas, Oklahoma and all the former slave states.
We would keep Hawaii too, the foreign country with warm water and beautiful beaches where Barack Hussein Obama was born without a birth certificate.
You can have Alaska and stare at Russia from your front porches.
To be fair, we may have to split up some states.
You get North Florida. We get South Florida. After all, what would you want with all those gay people in South Beach and old Jews in Miami?
We get North Virginia. You get South Virginia. To be fair, we'll let you keep the University of Virginia. Go Cavaliers! Plus you need at least one place to educate some leaders who believe in science.
But Austin, Atlanta and New Orleans get to be their own Blue city/states, sort of like West Berlin before the Wall came down. We'll even pay to move the capital of Texas from Austin to W's hometown of Midland, where as one native recently put it, "There used to be one Democrat in town, but I think she died".
We might even merge with Canada. That way we get single-payer healthcare, solvent banks, the Royal Canadian Mounties, and Ryan Gosling (eat your hearts our Red-nation women).
To sum up briefly:
We get Bruce Springsteen, Jay Z and Beyonce. You get Ted Nugent and Meatloaf.
Plus Willie Nelson gets to park his bus anywhere he likes in the Blue America.
We get Elizabeth Warren. You get Todd Aiken. (Hey, we'll even keep Chris Christie. He's too large to move, anyway.)
We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand.
We get the New York Philharmonic. You get the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
We get Oprah. You get Paula Deen.
And Blue America will have an easy repatriation policy for the ancestors of slaves still stuck in the former Confederate states, as well as a path to citizenship for undocumented workers and their children from both Red and Blue America who have worked hard/studied hard and put down roots. We'll even have a 21st century version of "40 acres and a mule" with education, job training and work at a fair wage for those who need it. (But here's a warning: good luck getting your crops picked, your kids asses wiped, and your pools cleaned without a bunch of low-paid undocumented workers.)
Any Red-nation NBA team that wants to gets to move to a Blue state city without its own team. Hey, how about them World Champion Pittsburgh Thunder?
And the New York Jets will send you back Tim Tebow for a player to be named later.
We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs.
You get backwoods crystal meth labs.
We get Intel, Microsoft and Apple. You get WorldCom.
We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue. You get to pay your fair share for once.
Speaking of all those federal taxes you love to hate. Most of it comes from us and goes to you. So stop talking nonsense about how "It's our money, not the government's money". Of the 19 states that send more money to Washington than they get back in benefits, 14 are Blue. And of 31 states that get more money back from the Feds than they pay in taxes, 23 are Red. It's not your money. It's our f**cking money. So from here on out, you can pay for your own damn roads and bridges.
Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate? It's Taxachusetts, the first state to recognize gay marriage. Think that's some aberration? How about this? 9 of the 10 lowest divorce rates are in the Blue states. And where are the highest divorce rates? 10 of the top 10 are Red.
But gay people getting married is going to ruin the family for you? Seems like you're ruining it pretty well on your own.
So we get a bunch of happy families, straight and gay. You get a bunch of single moms and deadbeat dads.
With the Blue States in hand we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve Texas wines at state dinners) 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech, UC Berkeley, and MIT.
With the Red States you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans and their projected health care costs, 92 percent of all US mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, and Bob Jones University.
So, as we said at the start. You want to secede? Go ahead. Make our Day. But be careful what you wish for. You might not be so happy if you actually got it. If you ask nicely, we might even take you back.
Keep UVa (Charlottesville and Albemarle county), Richmond, and Williamsburg (WIlliam and MAry as well as Colonial WIlliamsburg the actual history of the US that is celebrated there, we don't need anhistorical version of The Ark Adventure placed there). The DC - Tidewater crescent is too vluable to give up easily (Norfolk Naval Base, Newport News Shipbuilding, and NASA at Langly)!
I think Trump chose Vance, the most radical of those in the running, as a hedge against impeachment. The cost of removing Trump from office would be putting Vance in office.
Ah, yes and today? It reads like a nursery school tale. Those innocent times when having a moral compass was not only alluded to, it was necessary. And a Supreme Court that honored the rule of law instead of the rule of oligarchs. We thought that would be the worst this country would have to bear. Little did we know.
50 years later, here we are. Because Ford didn't have balls to have Nixon prosecuted. I was all of 20 years old and thought to myself "That's going to come back and bite us in the ass"
Or are we here because they never actually stopped working on their long-term project of undermining democracy to make themselves rich and powerful at the expense of our institutions and citizens? And they never stopped using the Nixonesque “dirty tricks” in the intervening decades? Roger Stone was on Team Nixon and he was, and still is, on Team Trump.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Stone
We need to keep an eye on the likes of Kari Lake, and other strumpets who are in their 40s +. They're dangerous too.
That bimbo ignoramus has managed to piss off enough "regular Republicans" - who still exist in Arizona - that she is already "in the hole" against Gallego. She should never have left the news reader bid'nezz.
Why does it seem that female republicans have the urge to outdo the male republicans in the race to the bottom. Trying to impress the “ladies man” (aka sexual predator) chump or just too stupid to know how they put people’s teeth on edge with every syllable.
JD, " The race to the bottom." Such an appropriate description of Trump's run to become the leader of our nation. In his efforts to win with his despicable, illegal and immoral rhetoric and actions, he has managed to drag to the bottom the people that I used to respect and admire. The House Republicans, with MTG, Goetz, Boebert in the lead, have joined in this race to reach the finish line, having cheated their way the entire distance. Wouldn't those who broke the rules of a marathon, be disqualified?? How in this world have we allowed such cheating, such unprofessional words and actions to have even a chance of winning a race " Of the people, By the people, For the people."
As for Nixon and his presidential race and journey, I can say, "The more things change, the more they stay the same,"
Shame on all those Trump lovers and supporters for encouraging and cheering him on in "the race to the bottom."
Some people I used to respect and admire. Hurts my heart that people fall for such obvious false prophets and behave in ways that I abhor. Maybe a tad of soft racism is at the core, or self-righteous fear of the other. Unhealed wounds leave people vulnerable to evangelical crap. Greed is competition at a basic level. I see so much that I abhor in people I have loved, that it makes me wonder if I am as blind as they are.
tRump is nothing without millions of Americans who want to see a wannabe as president. The only thing tRump wants is to stay out of prison and steal as much money as he can on his way to prison. As for the immunity defense goes, insurrection is not among presidential duties, nor are stealing classified documents.
Do they just like the constant sound bites? They sure do get news coverage. They should all be put in jail!
"MTG, Goetz, Boebert in the lead" . . . [Expletive deleted]
Some things change, such as the age of the dinosaurs. Human nature does not seem to change much. Cultures change and mores change, but the Jekyll/Hyde part seems evident even in ancient texts as much as in the "news". It has been argued, PBS Nova did a two hr. special on it, that casual violence has become less common over the centuries, but there is never any lack of people eager to commit it. Violent urges seems to spread like a virus sometimes. Germany, Italy, and Japan were in the throes of it in the Axis days. Our history documents our own society's crimes against humanity, and they are not done. Social justice is energy intensive.
I have had the experience, as apparently many others who respond to blogs such as this, of knowing someone who used to seem pleasant and reasonable who is now hostile and cut off from anyone who isn't foaming MAGA. That too is an established pattern of human behavior, and a highly problematic one having to do with cults.
Go, Pam!
Valentina Gomez did this in her overtly antigay campaign to become Missouri’s next Secretary of State, and she only got 7.2 percent of the vote. Her campaign went over like a lead balloon. She deserved to lose.
Glory, may Kari Lake be attached to one of those lead balloons.
Glad to hear that she lost! And, I guess I'm showing my ageism ("youthism"), but I find it hard to imagine how a 25 year old could possibly have enough experience to be Attorney General of a state...
How about minorities supporting the like of tRump. If the advancement of minorities rights has not been fully manifest blame the party that champions minority's rights and support the party that if they had their way would own slaves. That is what one calls logic?
Those who support him have mental problems to match his. I should say personality problems. They are damaged, not sick
How much of that support is real and not propaganda?
Just speculating (wink, wink), they are the true "trans" people! All the worst characteristics of Trump have infiltrated some women who try to outdo their male counterparts, no doubt for the same reasons: greed and infamy.
Love that, my laugh out loud moment. Nailed it
Excellent observation, Hope. Only in deep red districts or states....thinking of the Gnome here, do they get elected.
Have you ever seen the movie BlacKkKlansman? (John David Washington, Adam Driver) Don't want to spoil it, but I was shocked to see how one wife of a KKK behaved.
Women also are used to having to excel and exceed men in traditional male endeavors.
Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.”
― Charlotte Whitton
Such a corruption of a woman’s attempts at parity and respect as an equal human. No, I didn’t see that, but no surprise. I have an ex-in-law who would equal any man’ racist, self-righteous, religious bull Schitt. So glad she’s an ex
JD....these females think that being tough in an obnoxious way is somehow going to enhance them politically. They only succeed when they are in deep red districts like Gangrene. Harris and pols like Pelosi stand in complete contrast to them.
It seems that they hate being female and try to emulate the worst of the Repub men. Women reportedly have a smidge of empathy, even posers. They will never be decent men or women. And the poorest excuse for mothers
And why did Walz lie about his time served in the military...According to other party members, it is NOT the first time he has done so.
Don’t think he did, unless you watch Fox
We are in an age when we have the ability to pick apart every sentence anyone has said in public to try to misconstrue the meaning and turn it into a lie.
This is not about a pattern of habitually and repeatedly lying for convenience and advantage, i.e. 30,000 lies. It's about can we find something to criticize and exaggerate it.
Walz may be human but he is not a liar. Please take your trolling elsewhere.
Dear Sir,
Please read https://adamkinzinger.substack.com/p/the-swiftboating-of-walz-is-sick
And then come back here and share your opinions again. If you need access, please let me know and I'll make it happen.
Mr. Crespi, in this community facts matter. Mr Waltz never lied about his service. Please get this straight. Trump has appointed the man who devised the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry as one of the heads of his reelection campaign. This chap is using the the same vicious, unfounded approach against Waltz. Don’t be a sucker. And certainly don’t bring this smack into this community. Do a little reading, sir.
Walz has NOT lied. He retired initially and then 911 happened and he re-enrolled. Five years later he resigned, and then his unit was called to deploy 2 months later. At the time he retired a second time, his unit had not been notified that they were going to be deployed. Walz retired as Command Sergeant Major on 5-15-05. His rank was later changed to Master Sergeant for retirement benefit purposes, because he did not complete required additional coursework. You should read sourced info about him. Fox Spews & Co lie consistently and repeatedly as their MO. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Walz
Assuming you are correct, if one lie is bad 30,000 lies are 30,000 times worse.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/
But provide your source.
This military record business strikes a powerful chord in me, although I know need to tread lightly in expressing myself. Mr. Vance and Mr Walz both served in the military during a time when Americans in general were distancing themselves from our soldiers and their ‘activities' - particularly those in the Army and Marine Corps.
I was there at the beginning of that separation. I served on active duty in the Army from 1967-71, a time when our military men and women were coming under increasing fire at home because of the changing national mood over the war in Vietnam. The recent death of William Calley, who became the 'poster boy' for all the mistakes we made over there has brought all that back to me in a very uncomfortable way.
I came of age in the years following our victory in WWII when the military was renowned for what we’d accomplished - The actions of the so-called Greatest Generation.
This began to come apart barely five years later during the murkiness of the Korean War, particularly following the Chinese invasion when the continual see-saw of ground gained, given up, regained, regained, regiven up, all while the casualty count mounted began to seem pointless; only ending in an endless stalemate which continues to this day.
Vietnam, begun with such hype about dominoes and all that rapidly deteriorated into a quagmire in which we struggled in darkness allied with a nation whose rotating leaders increasingly lacked the support of their people, fighting an implacable enemy who were everywhere and nowhere. 50,000 of my generation died over there in what was increasingly perceived at home as a fruitless exercise in national folly about which our own government had consistently lied to us. Its grim end (for us) was far more costly and humiliating than our withdrawal from Afghanistan.
We have advanced little if at all since then. We continue to send our men and women into equally murky battlefields far from home with ill-defined goals, allied with corrupt governments who seem to lack the will to do what they are demanding we do for them, and unable to understand, as we did not in Vietnam, that our military is not designed for nation building, only for destruction.
I grew up thinking that military service was an honorable profession, and when our soldiers are used for rational and clearly defined purposes, it most certainly is. But we seem to have forgotten what that kind of rationality and clarity consist of, and so for over half a century, that honor has been so compromised as to have made us withdraw from those we have asked to serve and to risk their lives for purposes which seem at best unconvincing and at worst a unforgivable waste of young lives.
So all this brouhaha about the comparative services of Mr. Vance and Mr Walz strikes me as so much useless blather. They served in a military without defined goals and for a country which couldn’t seem to understand what we had sent them 'over there’ to do. Why then should we now demand some sort of proof of honor in their service?
Better compared to Trump's fake " bone spurs." I've not seen a thing that doubts Walz's military and public service record. Don't be part of the problem and always check your sources!
What are you talking about ?
C'mon Man
There are two choices , that’s it. If it’s Trump , who from the get go YEARS before his failed Presidency lied, and continued to lie, and still lies…not forgetting all the other underhandedness plus his merry sycophant trove…
I’m wasting my breath Sam , obviously
turn the channel
Hope you are correct… I can’t keep up with Arizona… :)
Those who enter politics with TV expertise (TRUMP/LAKE), have a head start in knowing well how to communicate. Beware!! She may only be a "news
reader", but along the way in that medium, you do learn how to communicate believably when reading others' words.
Although stopping dangerous people is necessary, the only thing that is sufficient is going upstream and figuring out why people decide to become immoral.
With a very small number of psychopathic exceptions, people don’t become immoral in a vacuum. Almost all of us are born moral, then some people decide to become immoral, and then a few immoral people keep going in that direction until they become dangerous.
So, how does one distinguish between a moral act and an immoral act? A moral act adheres to the “treat others the way you would want to be treated if the shoe was on the other foot” principle, and an immoral act violates that principle. Here’s the trick. If a person is adhering to the moral principle, then they’re almost certainly thinking “How do I adhere to the principle in this context?” If they’re violating the principle, then they’re thinking something else.
Defeating MAGA in November is necessary, but not sufficient. What is necessary and sufficient is recognizing that violating the moral principle, even in small ways, can have enormous long-term negative consequences. I wouldn't say that if I didn't think it was necessary.
IMHO, President Biden, VP Harris, Governor Walz, the Biden administration, and everyone in senior leadership within the Democratic party that I’m aware of have been modeling how to adhere to the moral principle in extraordinarily difficult conditions.
Why is virtually everyone in a leadership position in the 2024 version of the Republican party, their billionaire donors, and two thirds of SCOTUS no longer just immoral, but now also dangerous? Because of the butterfly effect. Specifically, violating the moral principle, even in small ways, can have enormous long-term negative consequences.
James, Robert Reich addressed this in his Substack this morning as part of his series on economic myths. The video at this link is for his paid subscribers only, but the post is available to everybody:
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/bonus-debunking-myth-trump-supporters
Spot on. In addition to Reich's idea that gross inequality is the enemy of democracy, I'll add that it's also the enemy of real capitalism, the idea that competition is good. And phony capitalism, the idea that killing off the competition is good, is another name for the same enemy.
James, Kamala Harris is even shutting up people who are chanting “Lock Him Up”, stating that jurors should determine his fate.
James I believe that the republicans who do become immoral think that the Democrats have committed immoral acts and therefore the Republican side has to do the same. I also believe that since the days of Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn who also advised Trump certain factions have used propaganda to foo l large segments of the American people into supporting right wing causes. Who are these people who believe they can use lies to convince voters who seem to be poorly informed into voting in a way that hurts them?
John, I assume we are on the same page, and that your question is rhetorical given that you've listed some of those people, but the question is, how do they get away with it? And my answer to that is in the comment you replied to, and in your reply. And that answer is the butterfly effect, aka getting away with taking advantage of people in small ways and mistakenly assuming that's the end of it.
Born moral? That would be nice if true. I guess it would also require that morality is somehow imprinted in our genes. Since we share over 90% our genetic makeup with other living creatures, I guess most everything from housecats to garden slugs to mold are more or less moral?
The world is a better place than I knew.
We Homo sapiens share 99.9% of our genetic makeup. The genetic diversity of eight billion humans is miniscule compared to the genetic diversity of an average troop of baboons. Housecats, garden slugs, baboons, and chimpanzees don't need morality. We do. See my longer response to Patricia Davis.
That’s profound , Tom…glad to hear ..past tense 🫶
A conscience, is it innate? The mixed messages received in childhood create problems initially, good parenting is key but not rare. The majority does well. Obvious the minority can raise havoc. To let them get away with it..is a substantial factor. How many of the inmates did wrong compared to those that turned their head or as is well know are the white collar criminals. Accountability , consequences, and here we are …’ the truths are held self evident ‘…still.
In addition to agreeing with every thing you say, I'd argue that the evidence is in favor of the idea that conscience is an innate trait specific to our species. What change happened at the origin of our species? Why did we stop living in single-family social systems? Why were our earliest post-origin ancestors the first to form a multi-family social system, aka the hunter-gatherer band?
For the record, a troop of chimpanzees is a fission-fusion society, and a chimp social system is a mother and her juvenile offspring.
The following is from renown anthropologist Christopher Boehm's Hierarchy in the Forest (Harvard University Press, 1999), page 5. "Humans were egalitarian for thousands of generations before hierarchical societies began to appear."
Note that our species has been on the planet for some twelve thousand generations, and the earliest "agricultural settlement" hierarchical societies where only about 400 generations ago.
The truth, beautifully and thoroughly stated. Thank you, James.
That seems to explain the media -- having rid themselves of the obligation to rigorously provide truthful information and adopting the ethos of doing anything for money provides much lift for that butterfly effect....
Shout out to Lawrence O'Donnell for his August 8 "Last Word" editorial calling out the MSM [including MSNBC] for yesterday's gutless coverage of what passes for a Trump press conference.
Terrific presentation by Lawrence O'Donnell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD-oTJ49nls) -- thanks, James R. Carey, for reminding me.
O'Donnell seems to have given a reason for why the media is so gutless -- that they are just as stupid as Trump, that they aren't as smart as Biden or Harris or Walz -- maybe it's too much like work to actually provide us truthful information that the citizenry of this country needs to fulfill the goals stated by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to govern this country of themselves for themselves, by themselves.
The media doesn't understand that they will be culled by the fascist autocrat dictator they are enabling.
All MAGA members are VERY dangerous.
Blue tsunami can drown them. https://www.fieldteam6.org/
…from the get-go the ONLY means to end this coup…the democratic constituency has this three word directive UNITE AND VOTE💙
And we must!
Are you certain “strumpet” is a welcome and intelligent term here? It reeks of sexism and misogyny and destroys any effort to contribute meaningfully to the conversation!
Thank you, MaryGene.
Kari Lake is like the Zombie Apocalypse
I wouldn't give her that high a rating. Brad Pitt aced that one.
I call MAGA people the White Walkers (Game of Thrones). Only Harris/Walz possess the Valerian steel to destroy them.
Unfortunately, in order to keep our country moving forward, with a Democracy, we will never be able to keep our eyes off of the likes of Kari Lake and those that follow her. For a while, it thought we could bullet proof democracy....but I think we can only raise the guardrails.
Perhaps, like the eagle, be ever vigilant....
🙌Susan!!!
There are plenty of wannabe dictators out there that recongnize how unruly democracy is and that dictators know how to get things done. Minor problem is you do not want to be on the wrong side when the dictator dejour needs to quell opposition.
Absolutely! She is a dangerous creepy Nixon type. Narcissistic beyond creepy.
Terri, I understand Lake is attractive. It seems for Republican women, that's all that counts, and that they will say and do almost anything (maybe anything) for their Baby Donnie. Certainly not much of a qualification to hold office.
At least the original Dirty trickster, Donald Segretti, regretted his actions, so I read. But his tricks are some of what Karl Rove used in Texas in 1994 to foist W on gullible Texans. Rove and Gingrich and a host of others used Reagan’s Oscar-level performance as president to do Nixon one better. And they have
Roger Stone was a young man then who got his education in dirty tricks during Nixon’s second campaign. Stone has used it ever since.
Yep, in a Netflix special some years ago, he bragged that he learned that lies worked better and usually people didn’t know the difference. He has honed his skills and I blame him for the 2000 debacle, the Al Franklin debacle and others that I suspect. Of course, he has taught plenty of others.
Brazenly so...
Shall we end it? If there isn’t enough paying attention we can suffer as history well documents ..again …each time it affects a little more of our world …it’s all related .. 💙VOTE💙
I have watched it encroach and cover more of our world. Time for pushback
Headed by the wealthiest oligarchs and their pons
They are hidden no longer, brazen and unapologetic.
Oscar Meyer hot dog performance! He was nothing but a cheerleader for the wealthy white guys like his buddy Annenberg!
I always gave NANCY credit for his greedy evil. Somewhere he learned to use Rupert’s money stealing skills (and his lying megaphone) for killing our middle class.
Sadly, also True!
There’s that as well. Had Ford done the right thing, it MIGHT have slowed the insidious move down; but he didn’t. The rest is history.
"......but the tapes revealed a mean-spirited, foul-mouthed bully."
Sound like anyone we know?
Convicted Felon Donald Trump is always in attack mode spewing misinformation. He uses words like "everyone knows" or "people say" when all those are just ghosts in his abnormal brain.
Right now Harris and Walz have center stage and are talking policy and working for the American people. DonOld NEVER talks policy unless it's to say, "I'm going to Make America Great Again."
When is the media going to chastise him for doing nada, zero, zilch to make America great?
His "great" accomplishment for 4 years was to give his billionaire friends and large corporations huge tax breaks. And to fill the courts with far right religious zealots who could care less about the US Constitution.
But instead the MSM keeps repeating his sophomoric jibes like we haven't heard it all before. If we wanted to hear it we could watch elementary school kids during recess.
Nixon knew people would not like the way he talked off the public stage and tried to keep it private, but the people who back the ex-president seem to embrace trash talk. Bewildering. Not the people I want in charge. I am so proud of Walz and the focus on what he has accomplished here in Minnesota. Let's bring good nutrition for kids and privacy in healthcare to the whole country!
I think he knows how to handle juvenile behavior quite well, from his experience in high school lunchroom monitoring. Looking forward to his encounter with Vance!
The answer to your question about the media is "never," apparently. Elementary kids who are bullies get stopped at most schools; Trump doesn't.
And, finally, as catchy as it is, let's give Old a rest as a descriptive; ageism is no more attractive than sexism or racism.
I'm old. I like to brag about being old. It's an achievement.
Anyway, it's retaliation for all the shite people hurled at Joe as being old, instead of venerating him for his excellent lifetime of service to our nation.
But I agree that "old" should not be used as a pejorative -- it should be used as veneration, or admiration.
Having said all that, 45 deserves "old" as a pejorative because he got old a long time ago.
When it comes to DonOLD the MSM is pretty useless. Watching his press conferences, I'm always pleading, to no avail, for someone to just call him in a lie. Just look him in the face and say, "Sir, that was a lie and you know it." Why is that so difficult for them to do? Is their complicity in the lie easier and they are just too lazy or fearful to do the right thing for their customers, the citizens of America and the world. If so, the whole press corp should resign and let others do the job.
But according to Lawrence O'Donnell's description, in this particular instance Old DonOld had it set up so that we could hear only him, not the reporters. The reporters were at a huge disadvantage. How in the world did all of the networks agree to that, knowing who they were dealing with? That should NEVER have happened 🤬
Mainstream media is a different creature these days, now instead in thrall to monied powers, regardless of morality or constitution.
"DonOld" 😆. Perfect.
aka Old Don-Old
Old (sick)DonOld has no charm..E, I, E, I,ooooo....
Even better 😂
That's an insult to elementary school kids.
At the time, we didn't know that Nixon also was a traitor; he undermined the Vietnam deal in 1968. Blood was on his hands.
Maybe that is another reason he stepped down. He was afraid he would be found out to be a traitor.
They called him "Tricky Dick", not for nothing!
Seen on a bathroom wall in San Francisco’s Chinatown back in the day:
“Why change Dicks in the middle of a screw?
Vote for Nixon in ‘72!”
Name two Marie: Heritage Foundation, Federalist (society?). Still on the road.
ALEC and a zillion “think tanks” with the goal of destroying democracy, all the while blathering “patriotic” bullschittery.
Bullshittery will now be in heavy rotation in my conversations. thank you.
But is it spelled "shi" or "schi"? I want to be correct.
😎 Did you look it up in your Funk and Wagnalls?
I prefer the sch iteration. Panache is everything.
I stole that from a commenter somewhere. Priceless. Wish I could give credit.
Propaganda mills rather than think tanks!
Exactly, but they pretend conservative bona fides when they are just Goebbels Ministries of Truth, Nazi style.
How much intellectual ability is needed to be greedy and money grubbing?
Not much, but intellectual ability fails to make one immune to the lure.
The Texas-based Cicero Institute. CI has been influencing legislation in Florida and most likely elsewhere.
https://jasongarcia.substack.com/p/sixty-days-in-jail-and-forced-psychiatric
They have metastasized, all pretending and exhibiting nothing but cult crap
I believe in freedom of speech. What baffles me is that there does not seem to be exceptions when that so called " free speach" incites violence, civil war, support of enemies, etc. The very biased Supreme Court Judges prefer to cover up treason for fear of loosing their perks and their lifetime jobs.
America had never held traitorous officials accountable. The leadership of the Confederacy should have been imprisoned at the very least. So should its military leaders like Robert E. Lee, who was a "gentleman." Nixon's acceptance of the pardon was an admission of guilt. He wanted to stay out of jail. No person should be persecuted, but being held accountable for illegal actions is NOT persecution. Even a president should be accountable for their actions. It is a betrayal of the oath of office for a president to break the law.
Exactly, Marie- there’s a direct line from Nixon to Trump in Roger Stone. That’s where the rot started
ROY COHN- do not forget this evil. He taught his clients how to ignore, deny, deflect. But, he's dead - Roger Stone is still alive and abusive to our Constitution.
The absolute must-read book is HCR's "How the South Won the Civil War." This "war" between the autocratic oligarchs and democracy has been going on since the inception of the Republic, and even before. Right now 800 Americans have the wealth equal to that of one-half of the American population, i.e. 800 vs. 169,000,000. "Houston, we've got a problem."
Both.
Let's not forget Roy Cohn. Notorious lawyer for McCarthy, Nixon and young tRump.
Devils in America. (a bow to Tony Kushner)
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240517-roy-cohn-the-mysterious-us-lawyer-who-helped-donald-trump-rise-to-power
the oligarchs want to destroy democracy. That's why we're here. Stay ever vigilant
I think it's some of both.
Precisely.
A direct line can be drawn from President Ford's ill-conceived pardon of Nixon to the egregious decision of the Supreme Court in Trump v. United States. Had Nixon been prosecuted, the matter of presidential immunity would have been settled at the time and not left to the MAGA majority on the Court 50 years later to create an immunity regime out of whole cloth with no basis in the Constitution. The pardon by Ford and its acceptance by Nixon demonstrated a clear understanding by both men that Nixon did not have the benefit of immunity. It would be an interesting analysis to apply the immunity regime devised by the MAGA majority to Nixon's actions.
The fatal flaw in the Pardon was that it wasn't conditional like a number of ones after the Civil War were.
I hesitate to say it, but there are advantages to letting some top and many lower level former enemies off lightly if it helps stop the endless bitterness and gets the highest percentage of the former civil administrations and citizens back to supporting legitimate governance (like we did in Japan and Germany, and Lincoln tried to do with his "conciliatory plan for reunification of the United States with his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction).
Spiro Agnew got to avoid prison by stepping aside in time to for us to prevent him becoming President after Nixon (a bitter deal for some but just imagine if he hadn't).
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardons_for_ex-Confederates
Nixon would have been exonerated, clean as a whistle. You know, official duties.
well, the new Supremes have left that determination to themselves havent they?
Yep, covered all bases.
I do wish that Ford had imposed conditions at least like those Lincoln would have preferred on ex-confederates (Congress wanted tougher restrictions though).
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardons_for_ex-Confederates
To me, Grant's terms got us some breathing room and made it easier to curtail initial post war resistance that would have occurred if we imposed harsh conditions.
"...Under the terms of surrender for the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 10, 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant stipulated that "each officer and man will be allowed to return to his home, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside..."
We wouldn't be having this discussion if they had had today's SC MAGA majority.
Yes, the Pardon was designed "to heal the Country"... sure.
Heal like a placebo pill stops a real disease?
In one sense, it was Ford who re-taped the door open.
Yep it was indeed
Excellent point!
Bingo!
That may well have been a significant contributing factor in saddling us with Trump and the Jan 6 debacle, by setting the precedent that presidents are above the law. That is probably Ford’s real legacy.
Ford didn’t end America’s nightmare by pardoning Nixon, he inadvertently ensured there would be worse.
I think the connection between Nixon /Watergate and today’s mess is generally accurate but much too simplistic. America changed radically in the Sixties. There was a slowly growing tide of people casting off the quiescence of the Fifties. Young people, to their everlasting credit, realized that the massive boom in consumerism in the Fifties had anesthetized the soul of the country. They realized that there were deep gashes in American society and their elders were blinded to them. So they fought back, slowly and tentatively at first, then in larger and more menacing (to the ruling elite) numbers. Racism was the first area of protest mainly due to the immense courage of Black Civil Rights leaders. Then the calamity of the Vietnam War began to become obvious. Slowly the counterculture movement gained an identity, at first one of kind of earnest silliness, then morphing into a serious and threatening force, threatening a complete upheaval of all Americans thought they stood for.
By 1970 the Right was galvanized into a concerted response. Although the hippies were relatively small in number they had immense influence on the American psyche. Suddenly everybody, it seemed, was rebelling. Women’s liberation became a loud and angry issue. Draftees were burning their draft notices. Universities were overrun in a way that would make the protests of this year look timid.
It was in this milieu that the Powell memo was drafted and circulated to corporations, lawyers, judges and all those who had a huge stake in the status quo ante. There was genuine fear at this point that America would be turned into a socialist country, its entire foundational values toppled.
Nixon was a part of this reactionary wave. He rode it hard and then fell through his criminal excesses. Ironically he proved the counterculture right once again, but by now their energy was gone - people were turning to individual expression in a myriad of ways and the fight for the common cause was over.
The Left ceded power to the Right in the Seventies and it has never been taken back. Donald Trump is as much symbol of the Right’s ascendancy as Nixon is now symbolic of its fear in the early Seventies.
Perhaps now, with Biden’s run and hopefully a Harris Presidency, much of the grim overreaction of the last fifty years can be unspooled. America needs this pivotal moment to begin a move back towards the real values and wishes of the Founding Fathers.
Pegged. I might add, so many sensational musicians joined the cause and absolutely altered history. There are Vietnam- and Nixon-era songs that will be played and adored long after most new songs are AI-generated. Canadian-born Neil Young might have tilted the scales with Ohio. American Woman was almost played at the White House before they realized the Canadian band The Guess Who had a completely different message in mind. Much of what John Fogerty had to say and sing about really did change hearts and minds. This is that time for songwriters again.
I wish there was just one lynchpin to the state of SCOTUS now, but there are many. And the greed for money and power is ages old. The nefarious ways to get them is also old. As Thomas shows us, though he is by far not the only one, dangling glitter and luxury can be heavy incentives, and such delectable presents are hard to turn down, especially if they seem to fit your take on this country.
What makes morality? What helps people recognize that power over others is ultimately empty and soul-destroying?
For sure economies that meet needs, equal opportunity social agreements, and top-notch education all help. But I suspect Faustian bargains will be with us for a long time. Which side are you on?
Thomas buys into the philosophy that some are clearly better and more deserving of favor than others.
Same thought at the time. The precedent pulled the rug from under rule of law.
Who is talking about the 200+ criminals and bad actors CFDT pardoned?
!0 of those pardons were criminals that had defrauded around $2 billion from Medicare and Medicaid and some of whom were still behind bars.
How can the GOP claim to be the party of law and order when they condone giving pardons to murderrs, tax evaders, fraudsters, crooks and many other criminal activities?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_granted_executive_clemency_by_Donald_Trump
I was stupid enough to think that they had learned that such horrible actions didn’t pay. Thanks to our press then, it didn’t for them. Our press today is a different animal. Thanks to those who still report the truth. But the major decision makers are cowards and greedy bastards..
Horrible actions do pay, as the history of tyrants and assorted criminals proves, but does so on the backs and unjust deaths of others. That's why it never goes entirely away.
It's up to us as a society to define boundaries of equitable, responsible behavior, and to secure unalienable human rights by means of government that we institute among ourselves, deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed.
So many have signed on to your goal, yet the evil never sleeps. Nor can we
I was 11 when Nixon resigned in disgrace and remember watching him announcing his resignation. Unfortunately, the Republicans viewed it as an opportunity rather than as a lesson, and here we are with a Supreme Court majority that is hostile to the very constitutional foundations of our government. The real foundation they seem to have forgotten is that the Founders did not want a theocratic government, and they believed that even the President was subject to the law.
And 50 years down the road, we've got McConnell, Roberts. Thomas, and Alito. It will be many years if ever before the US has regained its integrity. And don't think our allies and enemies don't notice the moral decline in Washington and across our land They have.
I was also at that age and thought the same thing. All actions have consequences.
I was in my early 20s too -- I was in grad school in London and stayed up to hear the resignation on the radio. And then when Ford let it all 'go away' I felt sunk.
Ironically at 29, three days after celebrating my birthday, I recall saying to myself and a few friends: “this [that] can’t be good”, why did Ford do that … and look at where we are now as compared to then, “… but when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal”, Richard M. Nixon to David Frost in 1977.
I was so glad to see that schmuck resign. He is a stain on American historyl
… but trump’s bigger (both schmuck and stain) - just what and how he prefers and likes it - but then it prefers upon one’s perception!
I thought the same. It's biting us in the ass.
B.L.U.F. (bottom-line, up-front):I was angry as a seventeen year old that President Ford did not wait until President Nixon were convicted. I was wrong.
WRONG
President Ford was the best president in my life-time. Pursuing criminal charges would have taken way too long and inflamed the country into the type of violence we may be facing today. Dr Cox Richardson argues that President Ford's pardon basically gave future villains get-out-of-jail free cards. I do not think people think that way when they play fast and loose with the rule of law. Dr Cox Richardson uses the Iran Contra perps getting pardons. They did not receive those pardons for years and only by the intervention of an aggressive Attorney General, William Barr, when President G.H.W. Bush was leaving office.
WRONG
Additionally, everyone knew in the country that President Nixon was undoubtedly guilty. Additionally, via the case Burdick vs the United States (1915) acceptance of a pardon carried an imputation of guilt. Lastly, who knew, in 1974, there would be a President Trump, a Senator J.D. Vance, and a whole crop of (wo)men placing their ambitions ahead of principles of republican governance? President Trump plans to make the pardon a get-out-of-jail-free card, not because of what President Ford did but because of who President Trump.
Ned, I wanted to say something in defense of President Ford, but I like what you wrote -- better than what I had in mind. I've seldom agreed with any Republicans, but I admired Gerald Ford as an "Old School" Republican, and a good, decent human. Pardoning Nixon struck me at the time as sort of "meh". What real practical difference did it make? The idea of justice has become, at least for me, a rather tenuous concept. I didn't view Ford's pardon as "what you did was OK" -- I saw it more as "the matter is settled, and we all need to get on with our work". I would be surprised to learn that our current Supreme Court put any value on Ford's pardon as a precedent. This Court is happily making stuff up out of whole cloth. As for Old Don-Old CF45, nothing he's done in his lifetime should have any -- what is the correct term -- probative value? A pardon would be a trump card, taking a trick in a game. No moral dimension.
What a thoughtful response, David. Before I forget and while I have the opportunity finally to do so, thank you so much for referring me over to Joyce Vance's 'Civil Discourse' sub-stack.
🤝
These days, I have to seek out those journalists and thought-leaders whom I trust. With the materials of Dr Cox Richardson, Ms Vance, and Dr Bandy Lee, I am falling behind, in fact drowning. At least, I am going down . . . ¡in a brainy blaze!
😉
Your reaction to the pardon, I suspect, is the one I would have had I been even five years older. Within a year and a half, I felt that President Nixon was more like a tragic hero; I remember telling that to teachers. I voted for President Carter in 1976. While I do not regret that vote, still I felt sad for President Ford.
❤️
¿Who knew how lucky I was that two candidates of so high a calibre opposed each other in the first election in which I participated? Still grateful to this day for that gift. The only other election, at least for me, that presented so high-class a dilemma was in 2008.
🥳
Your assessment of President Ford accords with mine; you articulate it very well. I recently argued for a return to a sense of cooperative conservatism. Frank Loomer nailed that idea in his response to my assertion: that yesterday's liberalism is today's cooperative conservatism. Any lovely who has fox-trotted, waltzed, or jitter-bugged with me has always known that I am, ahem, a step behind. 🤫
Ford kept a copy of the pardon in his pocket and seethed inside every time Nixon implied that it meant he wasn't a criminal. I firmly believe if he had it to do over, it would have come with a few well thought out restrictions.
I assume Ford was chosen to replace Agnew, as being as opposite as you could get from a criminal in my old party.
They really wanted to shut that door that kept letting the storm keep them from any semblance of rational order, trying to deal with Vietnam, the Sinai Interim Agreement, affects of the Oil Embargo, Squeaky Fromme trying to shoot him, etc.
I considered Ford better than Reagan back when my old party wanted them to run together. Ford would never consider being Reagan's VP, and Reagan would never settle for being VP (I believe to anyone). They needed even better pairing to run against Jimmy Carter (but couldn't pull it off with the slickest salesman unwilling to take the back seat.
I do wonder what the "Heir-itage" Foundation thought of Gerald Ford
Unfortunately, much of my response to your thinking is contained in my answer to David H.'s thoughtful response. So less bloviation in no way designates a preference. To your first statement on President Ford keeping a copy of the pardon, this one minute vid. may interest you.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4834551/user-clip-interesting-historical-tid-bit
I, too, preferred President Ford over President Reagan; the latter struck me as heartless. This short clip explains my affection for President Ford more than I can ever do.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4679797/user-clip-gerald-ford-united-states
Ned, I have a few stories to tell. First, thankyou for posting the clips.
It's been a long time since I watched President Ford talking. I was reminded of what it means to be an exemplar of an "Old School" Republican politician. I like to tell the story of what the relationships between the Republicans and the Democrats were like before the period of drastic change in the mid-to-late 1970s. The two sides would argue all day long, but they always remained friends. After a long day doing the work of Congress, it was common for Members from both parties to gather at local "water holes" to joke and laugh and unwind. They and their families were friends, and they would get together for dinner, and go on outings together. Their comity had evidently evaporated by the time Reagan became President. So, for me "old school" refers to that period before Reagan.
On a more personal level, my wife and I travelled to Grand Rapids, Michigan a few years ago, to attend a concert, and to visit several cemeteries where ancestors on my Mother's side were laid to rest. The Gerald Ford Presidential Museum is located adjacent to the big hotel where we stayed. We spent quite a long time visiting the museum. My appreciation and respect for Gerald Ford grew, by a lot. Among other things, he served in the Navy in WWII, aboard a ship in the Pacific theater. At one point the fleet was caught in a typhoon, and his ship was severely damaged. The way I remember it, the ship was an aircraft carrier, and at least one of the planes in the hangar deck broke loose from its restraints, crashed into another plane, and a fire started. So the ship was being tossed about by the Typhoon, and they had to put out the fire. The exhibits in the museum make the story vivid. It must have been a hellscape for Gerald Ford.
The museum is well worth a visit. President Ford and his wife Betty are both buried on the campus of the Ford Museum in Grand Rapids.
And a bit of Substack trivia: we can copy a link to a commenter's post on Substack by right-clicking on the date of the post that appears to the right side of the writer's name.
For example: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-8-2024/comment/64945450
Cheers!
Thank you for the how-to advice on sourcing the material of others' posts. Your stories warm my heart. My father went to Ann Arbor and had fond memories of visiting college buds in 'G.R.'. A niece gave me this interesting book about the friendship between Speaker O'Neill and President Reagan by Chris Matthews.
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/tip-and-the-gipper-when-politics-worked_chris-matthews/1397453/item/2474747/
I believe one reason that such amity existed is that these Republicans and Democrats had worked together for something larger. The son of Governor Dewey of N.Y. was a friend of mine in N.Y.C. A generous man with views that would fit right in here in this forum.
Anyways, his Republican nephew married Karenna Gore. That amity may still exist; the media, unfortunately, focusses on the nattering nabobs of narcissism like Marjorie flailing *scream, Lauren Baublehead, Shady J.D., and Haz-Matt Gaetz.
Ned, I always enjoy your stories and comments as well.
We hear too few stories about the "Old Days", and the "Old School" politicians, Republicans and Democrats, who would argue and debate with each other all day long, but they (and we) always knew we were on the same side.
Politics. Nixon was a crook, contrary to his assertion. But as I watched, you could see the political dynamics at play. I got started when it was John Dean's turn to testify. Republicans on the committee were eager to shut this down but Dean had come well prepared with his story, his wife and that no-nonsence lawyer behind him. God I loved that guy. And I loved Dean's testimony. Sam Ervin...what a character. Finally, JUSTICE! Yeah, the pardon...politics. I wasn't as prescient as you were. Reagan was still 5 years into the future and that's actually the beginning of the MAGA story. All those phony righteous southern christians, Limbaugh, Lee Atwater and the Clintons, Gingrich, Fox news and on and on. Watergate was the forward or the prelude. The right wing novel was yet to be written. Fascism was going to take time to emerge. The repugs resuscitated Nixon's reputation so he got to die a respected man in the end. SMH. And so now, with trump, I kept waiting for that "Alexander Butterfield" moment. It had to happen, I thought, only a matter of time and he'd be out on his ass and in Jail. It's kind of ironic to say we are a nation of laws. Yeah, we've been bitten on the ass but in less than a hundred days, we have a chance to turn this around or slow it down anyway. There's a lot of America that has to be fixed...a lot.
Honestly, Professor Richardson, you must have been a weaver of textiles in a former life. Because you surely do it with history in this lifetime.
Such a barnburner of a Letter.
Salud!
🗽
I'm pretty sure that was the deal. Nixon would agree to step down and Ford would pardon him.
Ford was the only person ever to serve as United States President, never to be elected as either President or Vice President. He was also, as a congressman, famously described by Lyndon Johnson as "that guy can't walk and chew bubble gum at the same time."
I've always believed that.
I was 17… really… why does he deserve to be pardoned… I was told by family… you shouldn’t do that to a President… why when laws are broken I asked… well because he is the President was the response… nope no said… trust me at 17 I was unable to articulate a rationale… just knew it shouldn’t matter who you were or what position you held, you should still be held to the same laws……… sigh.. now our SC is saying our presidents are Kings… well, only if they agree with him… absolutely despicable and so UN American
Watergate was this, as Heather so clearly describes - but so much more. Nixon and his close staff and allies were building an imperial presidency, similar to what SCOTUS has just ordained with its presidential immunity decision. Had the Supreme Court 50 years ago been as open to authoritarianism, bigotry, and corruption as the current court, Nixon might have been able to serve out his term, and possibly beyond. We were saved by many people, especially including Frank Wills.
SCOTUS then: [E]xecutive privilege “must be considered in light of our historic commitment to the rule of law. This is nowhere more profoundly manifest than in our view that 'the twofold aim (of criminal justice) is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer.'... The very integrity of the judicial system and public confidence in the system depend on full disclosure of all the facts….”
SCOTUS now: Presidents are kings.
Can't "like" this, but it's dead on.
"Presidents are kings."
And not constitutional monarchs, autocrats. While Grey Eminences among the Justices of the Supreme Court are... kingmakers.
Peter, to steal someone else’s moniker for Trump the king…..to be addressed as “your Heinous”. Perfect!
So perfect that it made me smile in spite of myself.
Wasn't the film about the Watergate break-in called "All the King's Men"?
Taken from the old nursery rhyme:
Trumpty Dumpty sat on his Wall...
When could "All the King's horses, all the King's men" EVER put Trumpty together again?
Some things just can't be mended...
All the President's Men, based on the non-fiction book written by Bernstein and Woodward.
Roberts, Thomas, and Alito. Look what they've done.
There were many scoundrels, but quite a few heroes. In addition to those mentioned in this post (Wills, Woodward, Bernstein, Cox, Richardson, Jaworski, Sirica, Ervin, Dean, Butterfield) one could add Peter Rodino, Barbara Jordan, Ben Bradlee, and the Baltimore prosecutors who uncovered the Spiro Agnew bribery scandal that forced him to resign (which led to Ford becoming VP and subsequently President. God only knows what might have happened had Agnew remained as Nixon’s VP.
Shudder at the thought. I’ll add Everett Dirksen. He and Barbara Jordan were the heroes to me. I was so proud of the process that nailed the perp.
And Mark Felt.
Indeed, he had a lot to lose
Bluchek Mark,
"....but quite a few heroes. " Yes, then and now such men and women serve this country with wisdom, with great inherent goodness, with their lives and amazing gifts of mind and character!
May God bless and protect each and everyone!!!!
May we too stand up against tyrants who would take this beloved country....this place that offers hope to refugees who long to be free...who long to find work and a place for their families....who long to worship as they choose or not to worship....to live safely with being who they are as human beings. Each and every person should be valued. Each of us make up this nation. We are great due to those who were here before us (Indian nations) and those who have since faced hardship to leave from a place of poverty or dictatorship to come to a place where they are willing to take the most humble jobs to start and build a new life.
We must work within our beings constantly to be persons...to be a country of people who strive to be truth tellers....to respect law and order mixed with compassion. We must each and all work to value and live out these ideals within many of our lives and to expect this type of character to be found and lived out by the leaders who stand as our leaders or we will fall to predators who only care for profit NOW, for themselves.
In order to continue as a great people, as a caring people we must protect our land and the air and the space we are exploring outside of our earth home. We must think of the future we are leaving for the children of this world.
If Agnew had remained as VP, we'd have a better approximation of what it will be like if Vance becomes VP. Ford, I still believe, was a good guy with a strong moral compass.
Maybe that’s why Vance was chosen—knowing the public would never want him as President, it would give us pause to throw Trump in jail (should he be elected and still found guilty of treasonous plots.)
Also, sending the Southern ‘boys’ home may not have been a great idea either. What if we had let the South secede? Their belief of white male superiority was never squelched or even moderated. And now here we are back at the beginning, fighting the same damned fight. Of course all the what if’s in the world don’t amount to a hill of beans. We are served the realities of today and must use our knowledge of past mistakes to make a better country tomorrow than it was or has been up to this point. Harris and Walz seem to be smart and honest. They project ideas of fairness for all citizens, not just the ones willing to pay for power. I am all in on this ticket, hoping they will be elected along with members of Congress devoted to justice. Given that ideal, real positive changes could be made in our laws to prevent another Nixon or Trump from stealing the heart of our country— liberty and the pursuit of happiness for every citizen, no matter their color, religion, age, or economic status—ever again!
Keep going..... our formerly respected Supreme Court has managed to shoot itself in the foot at the bidding of the Federalist Society and the GOP Senate, especially Mitch McConnell. They used to be largely non-partisan and used to respect precedent. Now they rule as though they were beholden to the RNC.
“What if we had let the South secede?“
This bit of humor about seceding might tickle your funny bone:
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Red States Want to Secede? Go Ahead. Make Our Day.
Nearly 1 million Americans have signed petitions calling for secession including over 100,000 in Texas and over 50,000 in Georgia. So, here's a response.
(A poll from Public Policy Polling reports that 25 percent of Republicans would like their state to secede from the Union. Nearly 1 million Americans have signed petitions calling for secession including over 100,000 in Texas and over 50,000 in Georgia. So, cribbing from a viral email that's been making its way around the internet in the spirit of fair use and adding my own evil satiric thoughts, here's a response.)
So some of you patriotic Americans in Red States are so mad that a Kenyan, Muslim, socialist black man got elected President of the USA for a second time that you want to demonstrate your patriotism by seceding from the United States of American? Go ahead. Make our day.
But be careful what you wish for. Here's how it could go down, and it might not be so pretty for you after all is said and done.
We would get the West Coast, all of the Northeast and the upper Midwest.
You would get Texas, Oklahoma and all the former slave states.
We would keep Hawaii too, the foreign country with warm water and beautiful beaches where Barack Hussein Obama was born without a birth certificate.
You can have Alaska and stare at Russia from your front porches.
To be fair, we may have to split up some states.
You get North Florida. We get South Florida. After all, what would you want with all those gay people in South Beach and old Jews in Miami?
We get North Virginia. You get South Virginia. To be fair, we'll let you keep the University of Virginia. Go Cavaliers! Plus you need at least one place to educate some leaders who believe in science.
But Austin, Atlanta and New Orleans get to be their own Blue city/states, sort of like West Berlin before the Wall came down. We'll even pay to move the capital of Texas from Austin to W's hometown of Midland, where as one native recently put it, "There used to be one Democrat in town, but I think she died".
We might even merge with Canada. That way we get single-payer healthcare, solvent banks, the Royal Canadian Mounties, and Ryan Gosling (eat your hearts our Red-nation women).
To sum up briefly:
We get Bruce Springsteen, Jay Z and Beyonce. You get Ted Nugent and Meatloaf.
Plus Willie Nelson gets to park his bus anywhere he likes in the Blue America.
We get Elizabeth Warren. You get Todd Aiken. (Hey, we'll even keep Chris Christie. He's too large to move, anyway.)
We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand.
We get the New York Philharmonic. You get the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
We get Oprah. You get Paula Deen.
And Blue America will have an easy repatriation policy for the ancestors of slaves still stuck in the former Confederate states, as well as a path to citizenship for undocumented workers and their children from both Red and Blue America who have worked hard/studied hard and put down roots. We'll even have a 21st century version of "40 acres and a mule" with education, job training and work at a fair wage for those who need it. (But here's a warning: good luck getting your crops picked, your kids asses wiped, and your pools cleaned without a bunch of low-paid undocumented workers.)
Any Red-nation NBA team that wants to gets to move to a Blue state city without its own team. Hey, how about them World Champion Pittsburgh Thunder?
And the New York Jets will send you back Tim Tebow for a player to be named later.
We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs.
You get backwoods crystal meth labs.
We get Intel, Microsoft and Apple. You get WorldCom.
We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue. You get to pay your fair share for once.
Speaking of all those federal taxes you love to hate. Most of it comes from us and goes to you. So stop talking nonsense about how "It's our money, not the government's money". Of the 19 states that send more money to Washington than they get back in benefits, 14 are Blue. And of 31 states that get more money back from the Feds than they pay in taxes, 23 are Red. It's not your money. It's our f**cking money. So from here on out, you can pay for your own damn roads and bridges.
Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate? It's Taxachusetts, the first state to recognize gay marriage. Think that's some aberration? How about this? 9 of the 10 lowest divorce rates are in the Blue states. And where are the highest divorce rates? 10 of the top 10 are Red.
But gay people getting married is going to ruin the family for you? Seems like you're ruining it pretty well on your own.
So we get a bunch of happy families, straight and gay. You get a bunch of single moms and deadbeat dads.
With the Blue States in hand we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve Texas wines at state dinners) 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech, UC Berkeley, and MIT.
With the Red States you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans and their projected health care costs, 92 percent of all US mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, and Bob Jones University.
So, as we said at the start. You want to secede? Go ahead. Make our Day. But be careful what you wish for. You might not be so happy if you actually got it. If you ask nicely, we might even take you back.
Keep UVa (Charlottesville and Albemarle county), Richmond, and Williamsburg (WIlliam and MAry as well as Colonial WIlliamsburg the actual history of the US that is celebrated there, we don't need anhistorical version of The Ark Adventure placed there). The DC - Tidewater crescent is too vluable to give up easily (Norfolk Naval Base, Newport News Shipbuilding, and NASA at Langly)!
I think Trump chose Vance, the most radical of those in the running, as a hedge against impeachment. The cost of removing Trump from office would be putting Vance in office.
Ah, yes and today? It reads like a nursery school tale. Those innocent times when having a moral compass was not only alluded to, it was necessary. And a Supreme Court that honored the rule of law instead of the rule of oligarchs. We thought that would be the worst this country would have to bear. Little did we know.
Yeah, I thought Nixon would be the top holder of presidential infamy for my lifetime.
Some time during Trump’s presidency, I saw a poignant bumper sticker, “I NEVER THOUGHT I’D MISS NIXON.
Ed, this is apropos of nothing, but I love the bumper sticker.
"We decided not to have kids. The kids are taking it pretty hard."
Don’t forget his VP Spiro Agnew who actually received bags of influence dollars IN HIS OFFICE! Justice did nab him.
Rachel Maddow on Bag Man, Spiro Agnew.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OoIab13RfA0
But he didn't go to prison.
No he didn’t but lord knows he should have. I don’t remember now the deal made that kept him out of the slammer but there was one made.
Go read Rachel Maddow's book, "Bagman."
I listened to her podcast but it was a while ago so forgot the details.
At least he never got to be President.
A very important and close call, that "at least."
In thise days the humiliation of being removed fron office seemed to be enough. Trump and Co. have no shame, so the lesson didn't take.
Did he accept the graft before or after he committed his his malfeasance? The Supreme Court wants to know.
If only...The popular majority of the USA never ever considered the possibility of tump beating Hillary Clinton.ĺ