Who else hates parades?

[shereads]

And what did Al Sharpton mean when he said Gerald Ford "put us on our good foot"?

Or was that James Brown? 2006 got so confusing at the end.




"Keep Richard M. Nixon number one!
Keep Gerald R. Ford number two."

~ Lazlo Toth, 1974, "The Lazlo Letters"

 

[3113]

Hey, I love parades! (see my "Rose Parade" commentary!)--this has been a paid advertisement by the Rose Parade Commitee. Where would we be without parades to demonstrate that were still powerful, sweet, funny, pretty, thoughtful, patriotic and have great marching bands?

 

[Huckleman2000]

James Brown's funeral had all the best things about a Baptist service in a black church. Great music, heartfelt preaching, and a wild assortment of Sunday clothes. [Also, the interminable pauses, the constant background action of moving folding chairs around, the loose organization - they're never one-hour-and-out, like a Catholic Mass.]

 

[shereads]

James Brown's funeral had all the best things about a Baptist service in a black church. Great music, heartfelt preaching, and a wild assortment of Sunday clothes. [Also, the interminable pauses, the constant background action of moving folding chairs around, the loose organization - they're never one-hour-and-out, like a Catholic Mass.]

A curious triumverate of celebrity deaths last week. Someone should draw some conclusions, or something. Observations:

Saddam Hussein capped his multitude of bloody sins with a final, unforgiveable insult to the civilized world: he behaved with dignity at the end. In contrast, his executioners came across as a gang of masked thugs offing a rival gang leader. Outside the prison walls, Iraq is up for grabs. But inside, it looks like business as usual.

Gerald R. Ford was the president who taught a generation of Americans that mediocrity can be oddly comforting. For a time.

Speaking of the Ford funeral, Cheney's elegy certainly made a strong case in favor of presidential pardons for outgoing office-holders, in order to spare America the trauma of long, ugly criminal trials and the prospect of sending formers leader to prison. Didn't it?



Sorry...Ford seemed like a nice man. And without him, we would never have had Chevy Chase answering a ringing telephone by holding a stapler to his ear. ("Down, Liberty!") That's a positive legacy.

Of the three, though, I think James Brown is the only one whose absence leaves an unfillable vacuum. There's always another third-world tyrant waiting in the wings; even now, the CIA may be grooming the next Saddam. For leaders of the free world, America's elite golf clubs maintain a healthy reserve of potential candidates. But originality is rare.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

She, Gerry Ford was never a "GREAT" president, but he was a good president. At the time, the American people were so fed up with the federal government because of Nixon, God could have followed him to the presidency and not done a great job.

Ford was a man of the people who had a great understanding and belief in our Constitution. Even his pardon of Nixon was a good move, even though it was unpopular at the time. Tom Brocaw said on "Meet the Press" yesterday, at the time the pardon was a terrible move, but time and history had proved him wrong.

During the Ford presidency, the country drifted on a slow incline towards economic stability and renewed public confidence in government. This was completed during the Carter Administration.

If GOD, himself, had followed Nixon to the presidency, he would not have done any better, given the times. Ford was certainly a much better president than the one we have now.

I watched part of the funeral of James Brown. I could not, nor will I ever understand why they allowed Al Sharpton anywhere within 100 miles of it. He was a definate low point.

 

[shereads]

Ford was certainly a much better president than the one we have now.

Well, duh. I know hamsters who'd make better presidents than the one we have now...But I hope you're wrong about God not being better at it than Gerald Ford. Nothing against Ford, but I'd like to think the creator of the universe is overqualified for the job.

I wonder if God has pardoned Nixon?

BTW, I understand the logic behind the pardon. But I can't help thinking that Nixon's successors - the current one in particular - might be more cautious about disregarding the law if Nixon had spent a few hours in handcuffs.

Forget Watergate, and consider that approximately ten thousand American soldiers would not have died in Vietnam if Nixon hadn't made a pre-election deal with the South Vietnamese to thwart the Paris Peace Talks.

I suspect that a criminal trial would have done us less damage than letting a president get away with murder and treason. We turned our backs on evil, were made numb to it, and set a precedent that we're paying for now.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Well, duh. I know hamsters who'd make better presidents than the one we have now...But I hope you're wrong about God not being better at it than Gerald Ford. Nothing against Ford, but I'd like to think the creator of the universe is overqualified for the job.

It's not that God isn't over qualified, She. But the state of the public psychic and level of confidence was so low the country needed about four or five years to heal from the Nixon assault.

 

[Pure]

maybe ford's being a better than average pres--if he was--is explained by his NOT being elected to the office by people's vote according to the american constitutional process.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

maybe ford's being a better than average pres--if he was--is explained by his NOT being elected to the office by people's vote according to the american constitutional process.

Ford did run for president in the following election and was beaten by Carter. Ford's words to Tim Russert were to the effect that he paid a terrible political price for the pardon, resulting in his defeat at the polls.

 

[shereads]

"Oops. Pardon my faux pas..."

Acting as a private citizen, Nixon asked a foreign leader to refuse to participate in peace negotiations in order to effect the outcome of a presidential election. Nixon’s actions cost lives (both American and Vietnamese), may very well have violated laws barring citizens from negotiating with foreign powers, and sabotaged the efforts of a duly elected government to conduct the nation’s foreign policy.

South Vietnam pulled out of the Paris Peace Talks a month before the U.S. presidential election, after secret discussions with candidate Richard Nixon. A peace accord might have cost Nixon the presidency. Sabotaging the talks may have cost an additional 10,000 American lives. Ford didn't just pardon an "abuse of power." He pardoned the cold, calculated sacrifice of many lives in the service of one man's political aspirations.

The October Surprise

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

She, Gerry Ford was never a "GREAT" president, but he was a good president. At the time, the American people were so fed up with the federal government because of Nixon, God could have followed him to the presidency and not done a great job.

Ford was a man of the people who had a great understanding and belief in our Constitution. Even his pardon of Nixon was a good move, even though it was unpopular at the time. Tom Brocaw said on "Meet the Press" yesterday, at the time the pardon was a terrible move, but time and history had proved him wrong.

During the Ford presidency, the country drifted on a slow incline towards economic stability and renewed public confidence in government. This was completed during the Carter Administration.

If GOD, himself, had followed Nixon to the presidency, he would not have done any better, given the times. Ford was certainly a much better president than the one we have now.

I watched part of the funeral of James Brown. I could not, nor will I ever understand why they allowed Al Sharpton anywhere within 100 miles of it. He was a definate low point.

Jerry Ford was a political hack who had no strong principles or beliefs, and got to where he did through accident and longevity.

"slow incline toward economic stability completed during Carter?" Pardon my French, but are you nuts? It was a plummeting descent to near-hyperinflation and double-digit unemployment, ended only by the tough monetary policies of Paul Volcker and the Reagan tax cuts. Jerry Ford's solution to inflation that was pushing double digit rates was to hand out "WIN" buttons - "whip inflation now." "Stagflation" was a word invented in his presidency. This was the time when the Keynesian myth collapsed, and he didn't have a clue about how to deal with it.

Neither did Carter. By 1980 the universal perception was that the U.S. was a has-been nation that would soon be joining France in the list of formerly greats, and further, that industrial civilization itself was grinding to a halt, and those of us who survived starvation would soon be shivering in the dark. Thanks for nuthin', Jerry and Jimmy. Good riddance to both of ya's.

I will give him credit for having the guts to pardon Nixon and truly put "our long national nightmare" behind us. It took guts because it was widely viewed as political suicide. He did put the country's well being ahead of his own interest. Other than that one act, he was a joke as a president.

~~~~~~

Parades are silly, but I don't "hate" them. I'm indifferent.

 

[shereads]

Let's follow Ford's courageous example and put all of our nightmares behind us by ignoring them. We wouldn't need a criminal justice system. We could turn prisons into shopping malls and bowling alleys.

In fact, we should pre-pardon Presidents when they take the oath of office and give them carte blanche to lie, scheme, use the power of the office to intimidate their enemies, and spend lives as casually as game tokens, and damn the consequences.

Oh, wait. They're doing that anyway now. I forgot.

Regarding Ford's alleged sacrifice of his political future: that lacks credibility on two fronts. First, what did he give up that he would have had to begin with, if not for the implicit agreement that made him Agnew's successor? No pardon, no vice presidency. No vice presidency, no succession to the presidency and no chance to run as the incumbent.

Secondly, whose votes did Ford lose by pardoning Nixon? Democrats weren't his to begin with, and Republicans weren't exactly storming the gates of the White House demanding that Nixon be brought to justice. Many of them still don't think he did anything wrong. They shrug off Watergate as a conspiracy by the liberal media, and simply change the subject when anyone mentions the October Surprise.

For "sacrifice" substitute "self-serving historical revisionism," and you've got something. If there was anything admirable about the pardon, it's that Ford chose not to double-cross his boss.

 

[Huckleman2000]

Ford started a string of Republican VPs who began their terms by pardoning the criminals from the previous Republican President. If Nixon had gone to trial, maybe we wouldn't have had Reagan's "October Surprise"-type of meddling in foreign policy to influence the election (the delay of release of Iranian hostages until his inauguration). Maybe we wouldn't have had Iran-Contra. Maybe the idiots involved in that fiasco and selling Saddam WMD would have gone to trial.

Instead, Bush the Elder used his Presidency to pardon all the senior people involved in Iran-Contra, and they were available to come back as political appointees when the Shrub took over.

Oh yeah, Republicans, the party of law and order. At least we all got to spend the peace and prosperity of the Clinton years learning about blowjobs and alternative uses for cigars.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Let's follow Ford's courageous example and put all of our nightmares behind us by ignoring them. We wouldn't need a criminal justice system. We could turn prisons into shopping malls and bowling alleys.

In fact, we should pre-pardon Presidents when they take the oath of office and give them carte blanche to lie, scheme, use the power of the office to intimidate their enemies, and spend lives as casually as game tokens, and damn the consequences.

Oh, wait. They're doing that anyway now. I forgot.

Regarding Ford's alleged sacrifice of his political future: that lacks credibility on two fronts. First, what did he give up that he would have had to begin with, if not for the implicit agreement that made him Agnew's successor? No pardon, no vice presidency. No vice presidency, no succession to the presidency and no chance to run as the incumbent.

Secondly, whose votes did Ford lose by pardoning Nixon? Democrats weren't his to begin with, and Republicans weren't exactly storming the gates of the White House demanding that Nixon be brought to justice. Many of them still don't think he did anything wrong. They shrug off Watergate as a conspiracy by the liberal media, and simply change the subject when anyone mentions the October Surprise.

For "sacrifice" substitute "self-serving historical revisionism," and you've got something. If there was anything admirable about the pardon, it's that Ford chose not to double-cross his boss.

Lord knows I'm no Jerry Ford fan, and no Richard "We're All Keynesians Now" Nixon fan, but frankly, I was around then, you weren't, and if you're suggesting that there was enough to be gained in prosecuting Nixon to jutify prolonging the national trauma, with all due respect, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

The nation was exhausted in 1974, first by Viet Nam, then Watergate, and also the first oil embargo a year earlier. The economy sucked. The "Rustbelt" was acquiring that title as drivers shifted en masse to efficient Japanese cars - Detroit's land yachts were a drug on the market. When Ford pardoned Nixon there was a little bit of teeth gnashing that the Trickster would "get off," but no real regret that the thing was over. In any event Nixon was a broken man, and everyone knew it.

Are the left wing fever swamp blog sites bashing Ford for pardoning Nixon? They really need to get a grip, on history at least.

 

[shereads]

Lord knows I'm no Jerry Ford fan, and no Richard "We're All Keynesians Now" Nixon fan, but frankly, I was around then, you weren't,

Really? Where was I?

and if you're suggesting that there was enough to be gained in prosecuting Nixon to jutify prolonging the national trauma, with all due respect, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

News flash: it's actually possible for someone to know exactly what she's talking about and disagree with you on just about everything. What is not possible is for you or anyone to prove that pardoning Nixon was better for the country than holding him accountable for his crimes. Better in the short term? Probably. The more convenient solution is usually more palatable in the short term. But as a precedent, the pardon demonstrated that justice can be blinded by rank, power and politics - even when the crimes are as heinous as treason, committed at the risk of many lives.

Are there lots of liberal blogs slamming Ford for pardoning Nixon? I haven't read them, or consulted with other liberals. I was expressing an independent thought. It's an exercise I recommend, even when it risks running afoul of your sunny disposition. Without it, we'd be the Stepford Nation.

I'm curious about the duality of conservative thinking when it comes to the criminal prosecution of ordinary people versus Richard Nixon or Dick Cheney. I've noticed a similar inconsistency on the topic of federal investigations and possible impeachment: wife's alleged real estate scandal, yes; adultery, yes; shaping evidence to support a war, no. It can't be easy to rationalize this stuff. Thank God for the Heritage Foundation, huh? As a source of history and interpretations of history, they're a lifesaver.

Criminal trials are traumatic by nature. If you're suggesting we selectively abolish them so the victims can move on to more productive things, why not say so?

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Shereads,

Ford pardoned Nixon and most draft dodgers. When Ford told Tip O'Neil (Demo Speaker of the House) about the pardons, O'Neil said it would cost him the election. Ford did it anyway. O'Neil was right.

You're right that one doesn't need to have lived through a period to understand it. But not having done so makes it hard to understand the "feel" of the times.

When Nixon resigned and Ford became President, the country seemed to be having a nervous breakdown. After Vietnam and Watergate, a long, drawn-out prosecution of Richard Nixon might have been more than the country could endure. The pardons changed two traumas from current events to a part of history. Everyone's sense of justice may not have been served by the pardons, but they were in the best interest of the country.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Huckleman2000]

Shereads,

Ford pardoned Nixon and most draft dodgers. When Ford told Tip O'Neil (Demo Speaker of the House) about the pardons, O'Neil said it would cost him the election. Ford did it anyway. O'Neil was right.

You're right that one doesn't need to have lived through a period to understand it. But not having done so makes it hard to understand the "feel" of the times.

When Nixon resigned and Ford became President, the country seemed to be having a nervous breakdown. After Vietnam and Watergate, a long, drawn-out prosecution of Richard Nixon might have been more than the country could endure. The pardons helped make two traumas a part of history. Everyone's sense of justice may not have been served by the pardons, but they were in the best interest of the country.

Rumple Foreskin

Um, I was there, and I'm pretty sure it was Carter who pardoned draft dodgers. Far be it from a Republican to pardon anyone for taking a non-violent stand against abuse of power.

And I completely disagree. Nixon's resignation was like a light at the end of the tunnel. Finally, there was hope after all the disillusionment since Kennedy was assassinated. Lyndon Johnson helped pass Civil Rights and the Great Society, but MLK and Bobby were assassinated, the poor continued to fight in Vietnam, the Chicago police beat protesters, the Ohio National Guard shot students, and Nixon was elected president - twice.

Ford's pardon was a slap in the face to an entire generation, and the idea that justice and morality existed apart from power in this country. Of course it cost him the election.

Ford was the quintessential 'go-along to get-along' kind of guy. I don't doubt that he meant well, but he cemented the oligarchy in this country, and laid the foundation for decades of Republican malfeasance.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Ford was the quintessential 'go-along to get-along' kind of guy. I don't doubt that he meant well, but he cemented the oligarchy in this country, and laid the foundation for decades of Republican malfeasance . . .

. . . beginning with the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976 - all part of a GOP plot.

"Alright, listen up. Jerry pardons Dick so he'll lose in '76 to a Dem who will be so incompetent that he'll bring the country to the edge of ruin, and thereby allow Ron to get in in '80. Don't worry, Jerry - Halliburton will pick up the cost of your funeral, and Cheney will still be around to take care of any details. Everyone got it? Break!"

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Um, I was there, and I'm pretty sure it was Carter who pardoned draft dodgers. Far be it from a Republican to pardon anyone for taking a non-violent stand against abuse of power.

Huck,

Looks we're both right about the pardons, at least according to Wikipedia

At the same time as he announced the Nixon pardon, Ford introduced a conditional amnesty program for Vietnam War draft dodgers who had fled to countries such as Canada.[30] Unconditional amnesty, however, did not come about until the Jimmy Carter presidency.

It's doubtful if there can ever be a generally agreed upon resolution to the issue of whether the Nixon pardon was good or bad for the country. I don't believe a long prosecution of Nixon would have been good for the country, you do. What I think we can both agree on, is his pardon by Ford occuring at a point in history I hope we never repeat.

Rumple Foeskin

 

[Huckleman2000]

. . . beginning with the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976 - all part of a GOP plot.

"Alright, listen up. Jerry pardons Dick so he'll lose in '76 to a Dem who will be so incompetent that he'll bring the country to the edge of ruin, and thereby allow Ron to get in in '80. Don't worry, Jerry - Halliburton will pick up the cost of your funeral, and Cheney will still be around to take care of any details. Everyone got it? Break!"

I didn't say that it was a GOP plot.
I just said that it laid the foundation for decades of Republican malfeasance.
Iran-Contra? S&L bailout? Trillion-dollar deficits? Covert support of fascist despots and repressive right-wing dictators and anti-democratic movements around the globe? Much of these policies carried out illegally, or through means of dubious legality that either haven't been challenged or have been muzzled by subsequent Republican administrations?

Republican fiscal policy since 1980 has been simply to write a huge string of bad checks. Even while running on a platform of 'balanced budgets'. Remember the Balanced Budget Amendment? Republican control of government for years, and not a peep. Only balanced budgets in the interim from a Democratic President and his fiscal policies.

Republicans have been crooks since Nixon, and Ford's pardon only made it possible for those exact same crooks to come back into power again and again, each time driving the country and the planet further into ruin.

 

[shereads]

Huck,

Looks we're both right about the pardons, at least according to Wikipedia

At the same time as he announced the Nixon pardon, Ford introduced a conditional amnesty program for Vietnam War draft dodgers who had fled to countries such as Canada.[30] Unconditional amnesty, however, did not come about until the Jimmy Carter presidency.

It's doubtful if there can ever be a generally agreed upon resolution to the issue of whether the Nixon pardon was good or bad for the country. I don't believe a long prosecution of Nixon would have been good for the country, you do. What I think we can both agree on, is his pardon by Ford occuring at a point in history I hope we never repeat.

Rumple Foeskin

Rumple, what would justify a long prosecution of a former chief executive?

I respect your belief that the Nixon pardon was for the best. A lot of people who once condemned it as an act of cronyism agree with you now, in hindsight. I might too, if Nixon's October Surprise and Watergate had been isolated incidents. But we've since had Iran-Contra, and evidence of a second October Surprise involving a postponement of the hostage release, as Huck pointed out. We've got reams of evidence that the current administration presented partial, questionable and erroneous evidence to Congress in order to make a case for the war in Iraq. The army's efforts to stop payment of Halliburton's Iraq contracts pending an investigation of alleged financial malfeasance are continually overruled, and Cheney has managed to dodge questions about the company's dealings with Saddam Hussein under his watch before he became VP.

Even now, the same arguments that got Nixon off the hook are being used to fend off an impeachment of Bush and/or Cheney: it would be bad for the country, because so many other awful things are going on. The fact that many of those awful things are their fault makes the argument ring hollow.

When does evident criminal wrongdoing by our highest executives outweigh the supposed trauma to the nation of prosecuting their crimes?

Should a president or vice president be immune from criminal prosecution in every circumstance? Or should we only prosecute a president when the country has nothing more serious to worry about?

BTW, I'm deeply flattered that you think I'm too young to remember the Watergate era. Even as a fetus, I was curious about politics and tried to stay well informed. (I read "All the President's Men" in utero.)



Edited to add: Watergate would barely make a blip on the corruption meter these days. And that could very well be due to the fact that Nixon's successors saw him retire to write his memoirs in luxury at his San Clemente ranch, instead of playing golf with Spiro Agnew on a poorly maintained nine-hole course at White Guy Prison. I mean, come on people. It's not like he'd have gone to a real jail, like draft dodgers did before the pardons.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

.


BTW, I'm deeply flattered that you think I'm too young to remember the Watergate era. Even as a fetus, I was curious about politics and tried to stay well informed. (I read "All the President's Men" in utero.)



Edited to add: Watergate would barely make a blip on the corruption meter these days. And that could very well be due to the fact that Nixon's successors saw him retire to write his memoirs in luxury at his San Clemente ranch, instead of playing golf with Spiro Agnew on a poorly maintained nine-hole course at White Guy Prison. I mean, come on people. It's not like he'd have gone to a real jail, like draft dodgers did before the pardons.

For your mother's sake, I do hope that wasn't a hardback edition of "All the President's Men."

I respectfully disagree about Watergate today. And the idea Nixon got away scot-free and that enboldened future Preisidents to commit high crimes and misdemeanors is, in my opinion, questionable. Granted, Nixon didn't get jail time, but then if OJ could get off, so might have Nixon. As is, he left office in disgrace, lived out his days haunted by Watergate, and will always be remembered as the President who resigned amid charges of abuse of power.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[shereads]

For your mother's sake, I do hope that wasn't a hardback edition of "All the President's Men."

I respectfully disagree about Watergate today. And the idea Nixon got away scot-free and that enboldened future Preisidents to commit high crimes and misdemeanors is, in my opinion, questionable. Granted, Nixon didn't get jail time, but then if OJ could get off, so might have Nixon. As is, he left office in disgrace, lived out his days haunted by Watergate, and will always be remembered as the President who resigned amid charges of abuse of power.

Rumple Foreskin

Like I said, it beats playing "drop the soap" with the other cons. I read excerpts of Nixon's memoirs and didn't see much shame there. I'm sure he also took comfort from the fact that many Americans, maybe that silent majority he spoke about, thought he was hounded from office because he was unpopular with the liberal media, and not because of any criminal wrongdoing. Without a trial, there will forever be a faction who dismiss the evidence against Nixon as unproven allegations.

No doubt, all people accused of serious crimes are publicly humiliated and endure a degree of ostracism. But exposing a street thug to shame isn't considered sufficient justice. I maintain that selling a bag of crack - or even committing a violent murder or two or three - is less dangerous than the subversion of the constitution, the betrayal of public trust, and the misuse of the country's military might and intelligence agencies by the world's most powerful elected official.

A president should be subject to a degree of justice that's in keeping with the harm inflicted, not the honor of the office. He was already honored with the office. That's the whole point.

Would you feel differently about Nixon's fate if you'd been one of the people on his Enemies List, persecuted by your own government to satisfy a paranoid whim of the president's?

If you suspected that someone you loved and lost in the final months of the Vietnam war might have lived if the war hadn't been extended to get Nixon elected, would you be satisfied that justice was done when he was forced from office?

How about the fact that Nixon, unlike, say, Ted Bundy, made every American taxpayer an unwitting accomplice to his crimes by having them foot the bill? My neighborhood car-stereo thief is Mother Theresa by comparison, and he wouldn't be allowed to sleep on a park bench in San Clemente, California, where Nixon spent his retirement years.

We already had two standards of justice: one for those who can afford the best attorneys, and one for everyone else. By pardoning Nixon, we confirmed that there's a third standard that applies to the presidency, where disregard for the law is potentially dangerous to the entire world.

 

[shereads]

For your mother's sake, I do hope that wasn't a hardback edition of "All the President's Men."

Not to worry. She swallowed each chapter on microfiche and I built a tiny viewer from a kit.

 

[Huckleman2000]

For your mother's sake, I do hope that wasn't a hardback edition of "All the President's Men."

I respectfully disagree about Watergate today. And the idea Nixon got away scot-free and that enboldened future Preisidents to commit high crimes and misdemeanors is, in my opinion, questionable. Granted, Nixon didn't get jail time, but then if OJ could get off, so might have Nixon. As is, he left office in disgrace, lived out his days haunted by Watergate, and will always be remembered as the President who resigned amid charges of abuse of power.

Rumple Foreskin

Historically, I agree, and I don't wish to argue about this, since it's all speculation anyway. I just want to voice my opinion as well, and your posts help me to clarify my own views.

Nixon left office in disgrace, and his position in history is there for all to see. Yet still, lots of people, and lots of people in power today, don't see it that way.

You see the pardon as a healing gesture for the nation. They see it as the righting of a wrong. They see Ford's offer of clemency to draft dodgers (I now remember the 'clemency' vs. 'amnesty' debate, thank you) as a weak capitulation and 'deal' that shouldn't have been put forth as a counterpoint to the Nixon pardon. Cheney, the principal architect of the current travesty, is on record that it's his opinion that the rightful power of the Presidency was diminished by holding Nixon to account, such as he was.

Like Bush wrestling with his unresolved parental and substance-abuse issues through US policies, Cheney is lashing out on Nixon's and his own behalf over what he still believes are imagined crimes, perhaps due to Ford's 'pardon'. He believes he is, and conducts himself completely above the law, daring anyone to hold him accountable, and ridiculing those who even broach the subject. Think you or I would get a night to sleep it off if we got drunk and shot a guy in the face in a hunting party? Yet he laughs it off, and his victim apologizes.

And there's no investigation of the circumstances.

Yet, bring up a lucrative land deal in the 80's (a time when the government was handing Neil Bush SBA loans to pour into failing S&Ls), that had already been investigated and dismissed years before, and we need to check out the President's sex life to make sure we nail him on something.

There is a debate over values and morality and the proper role of government in people's lives that has been going on since Nixon, and it's way past time that we recognize what is and isn't important to us in that debate.