President Gerald R. Ford died yesterday, and the debate over his legacy has begun.The largest single item of his political life is, of course, his pardon of Richard Nixon. Most historians and self-appointed pundits now say that while it cost him the election in 1976 it brought the country together and allowed us to move forward. They are wrong.
As the proverbial phrase (wrongly attributed to Samuel Johnson) goes, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." Certainly President Ford intended to heal the nation by putting the Watergate mess behind us as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Putting Nixon on trial for his crimes against America would have prolonged the matter.
The pardon, however, was a case of the cure being worse than the disease. The feeling that grew out of the pardon was that people in power can get away with anything. Certainly Ronald Reagan got away with trading arms for hostages and illegally financing the contra war in Nicaragua. He broke the law and lied to Congress and America about it, and got away with it.
Would Reagan have gotten away with his crimes if Richard Nixon had paid for his crimes? Almost certainly not.
The reaction to the "Iran-Contra" scandal was the ferocity with which the Republicans went after Bill Clinton. Ferocious investigations of "filegate" and "travelgate", not to mention the Whitewater deal, fizzled out. His affair with Monica Lewinsky, while certainly meriting some sort of condemnation, was not, under any legitimate Constitutional interpretation, cause for impeachment.
Would the Republicans have considered impeachment Reagan hadn't gotten away with his crimes? Certainly not - America would have been so tired of scandal and retribution that even Newt Gingrich, blinded as he was with frustration at not being able to outmaneuver the President, would have known he couldn't have gotten away with it.
As a reaction to that impeachment, America is now tired of scandal and retribution. We may pay the cost by letting George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the rest of what is probably the most corrupt administration in American history get away with crimes far worse than even the Nixon White House committed. Theft of elections, denial of civil rights, and the outright shredding of the Constitution - these are possibly the most heinous crimes against America possible, short of outright treason. The torture chambers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo are crimes against humanity.
But Bush, Cheney and the rest will probably get away with these horrors, and we will pay the price for a generation or more. And it would never have happened if Gerald Ford had not pardoned Richard Nixon.
President Ford's most famous words have proven wrong. Our long national nightmare is not over; it is getting worse.
Copyright 2006, Dan Jacoby
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