Ford Prolonged Our Nightmare, Impeaching Bush Will Heal Our Nation [View All]

[kpete]

Ford Prolonged Our Nightmare, Impeaching Bush Will Heal Our Nation

By Jonathan Tasini, Huffington Post

One of the most common themes we are now asked to accept, as part of the hagiography surrounding the death of Gerald Ford, is that Ford ended our "long national nightmare" by pardoning Richard Nixon over his crimes in "Watergate" and that such an act remains a positive part of his legacy.

In the debate over whether the pardon should have been granted, the focus has typically been on the dynamic at the time and what would be gained by putting the disgraced president and the nation through a criminal proceeding. Here's another way of seeing it: by pardoning Nixon, Ford actually prolonged our national nightmare and, along with others, paved our nation's march forward that has culminated in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the Iraq War. We can only heal our nation now with the impeachment and trial of the current president and vice president.

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I think it is a fair argument to make that had Nixon been convicted and served a prison term--as he should have--the Iraq war might never have happened--and hundreds of thousands of people would not have died, we would not have squandered as much as $2 trillion on an insane war and we would not have opened up a huge rift in our relations around the world. Is it not likely and plausible that, with the precedent of a Nixon conviction and imprisonment very much branded in the consciousness of our elected leaders, the current president and vice president (particularly the latter who worked in the Ford presidency) might have paused for a moment, in their improper, fallacious and illegal pursuit of an immoral war and the evisceration of our civil liberties, to ponder whether they were committing acts that might land them in jail? Given the individuals, I'll concede that perhaps nothing would have deterred them from committing impeachable offenses, that in the words of the House, were "subversive of constitutional government," caused "great prejudice to the cause of law and justice" and brought "manifest injury to the people of the United States."

We can undo some of the damage that the Nixon pardon caused. And that task must be taken up by the incoming Democratic majority. Incoming Speaker Pelosi and incoming Majority Leader Reid, if you continue to refuse to hold the current Administration accountable, as set forth in our Constitution, for the breaking of our laws and the violation of their sworn oaths, you will only be prolonging our national nightmare for years and possible generations to come. Future presidents will not hesitate to repeat the behavior of the Nixon and Bush Administrations because they will see our track record--our unwillingness to hold our elected leaders accountable for laws they violate. Based on lies that they will cloak in their own justification and without the proper Constitutional authority, future presidents will embark on wars that will kill countless more young men and women.




more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-tasini/ford-prolonged-our-nightm_b_37386.html