Lock'em Up!

I am a bad blogger for not following the minutiae of the 1/6 committee, but I suppose I've just decided not to worry my beautiful mind about investigations and process. Always happy to be wrong, but the record of holding DC elites accountable for anything, anything at all, is not very good!

Today shows that a mistake was made in pardoning Nixon and sparing him prosecution and possibly jail. Had Nixon had to face more dire consequences than exile, it would have presented an important admonition to later Presidents that they could not break the law without suffering.

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) December 19, 2022

This is progress, as we had decades of Presidential Historians and DC pundits telling us that Ford was the bravest, noblest man for sacrificing his re-election to pardon that crook so The Nation Could Move Forward or whatever nonsense they peddled. Suggesting otherwise marked you as crazy a crazy person as much as opposing the Iraq war did.

Just ask Michael Beschloss, 2007 version!

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Gerald Ford pardoning Nixon, I think, was courageous, and in retrospect, wise. And one of the things that I think is actually quite lovely is that Gerald Ford said, before he died, that one of the things that emotionally meant the most to him was getting the Profile In Courage Award, because it made him feel that, despite the fact that he had gone through all that flack and people denouncing him, saying, “Did you make a secret deal with Nixon to get the presidency in exchange for a pardon?” he felt that in the end, he had been vindicated. And one thing that’s sort of pointed about history is that oftentimes people are not with honor in their time. And the nice thing with Ford is that he lived to see it. And Alan and I, I think you were not on the Committee, we were not here then.