He was a reasonably good president, I think, and as far as I could tell, a very good man.
I could never see what else he could have done BUT pardon Nixon. Anything else at that time would have torn the country further apart than it already was. And Nixon couldn't have been impeached, since he'd resigned; he could only have been arrested like a common felon, and I can't see what would have been served by convicting and jailing him for crimes the majority of us knew he'd committed. Justice, maybe. I'm not always certain justice is better than mercy.
But the pardon killed his chances. I think Ford himself knew that.
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chiming
no subject
Date: 2006-12-27 10:34 pm (UTC)From:I could never see what else he could have done BUT pardon Nixon. Anything else at that time would have torn the country further apart than it already was. And Nixon couldn't have been impeached, since he'd resigned; he could only have been arrested like a common felon, and I can't see what would have been served by convicting and jailing him for crimes the majority of us knew he'd committed. Justice, maybe. I'm not always certain justice is better than mercy.
But the pardon killed his chances. I think Ford himself knew that.