Pardonez Ma Affaire

Fifty years ago today, President Gerald R. Ford pardoned his predecessor, Richard Nixon, for crimes he committed or may have committed during this five-and-a-half-year Presidency. 

Once reviled by the nation, this decision to pardon Nixon was meant to heal the country after nearly a decade of acrimonious tumult over Vietnam and especially Watergate, but many Americans would come to believe that it was the right thing to do because it spared the U.S. a divisive trial of a former President that would have exacerbated the raw feelings over the scandals of the Nixon administration and precented the country from dealing with the sputtering economy and an oil shortage.  Ford would even receive a Profile In Courage award from the John F. Kennedy Library for issuing the pardon, aware that his decision would cost him his bid for a full presidential term in his own right in the 1976 election.   

Now, however, the pendulum has swung back.  Many people now believe that a trial of Richard Nixon was necessary to make it clear once and for all that a President is not above the law.  But the pardon not only let Nixon off the hook for crimes he committed or may have committed, it paved the way for a future President to do something criminal and claim the right to do it ("If the President does it, it's not illegal - Richard Nixon).  Taking note of the Ford pardon of Nixon in 1974 was a 28-year-old hotshot real estate hustler from Queens named Donald J. Trump.

Trump has managed to convince nearly half the country - including six Supreme Court justices - that he should have immunity for official acts, and he now plans for a second administration in which he aims to do anything, no matter how illegal, to stay in power, enrich himself from his office, and silence dissenters who call him on it.

And he'll get away with it.

The United States sucks big at time at holding Presidents to account for high crimes and misdemeanors, and the justice system has allowed Trump to get away with everything he's already done - even his sentencing on the hush money case has been pushed back to after the election.  The mainstream media also suck in holding Trump to account for his carious offenses and also for his promises to rule as a dictator - "Oh, its just Trump being Trump" - because Trump stories have become mere entertainments like the latest Cardi B "music" video or some godawful teen flick whose title ends in a numeral.  If we don't hold Trump to account at the ballot box, he'll be President again and amuse us to death.

Gerald R. Ford's decision to pardon Nixon now looks as wrongheaded as it did in 1974.   Our long national nightmare was only just beginning.