As Yglesias says, the only alternative to a full and blanket pardon wasn't putting Nixon in chains, though that was a possibility. The important thing was to find out the truth. Our elites repeatedly redefine "getting past it" as "sweeping it under the rug" based on their apparent opinion of themselves as necessary moral and spiritual leaders for the riffraff. If they are revealed to be greatly flawed then without them as a shining beacon to light the way the riffraff will go astray and the country will collapse.
They are our betters and we need them they think, and so their class must be preserved even if the occasional unpleasantness must be swept under the rug.
