The pardon

Amid all the revisionism, it is good to see one mainstream news source still critical of Ford pardoning Nixon.

Ford will be remembered most for one act: his pardon of Nixon, just one month after the resignation. Ford wanted to govern as the president who led his nation out of the long shadow of Watergate. Yet his ill-timed and ill-considered pardon actually drew the shadow of Watergate over Ford's own presidency, destroying the Republican Party's chances in midterm elections that year and perhaps contributing to Ford's reelection loss to Jimmy Carter in 1976.

The pardon was a mistake, inconsistent with the fundamental principle that everyone, including the president, is equal before the law. Nixon tried hard to defy that principle and, coming so soon after his resignation, the pardon did the same. Some of those who once criticized Ford's pardon have softened their views over time, arguing that we needed healing and forgiveness. In 1974, however, after so much Nixonian stonewalling and evasiveness, our system of government would have been better served by letting the legal process take its course, no matter how uncertain.

What I’ll always remember about Ford is the supposed sports hero who couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time, and the repeated images of him tripping over his own feet.

I will say that he was historical proof that sometimes politicians do in fact pay for their transgressions at the ballot box.