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Old 06-10-2019, 03:41 PM
 
51,616 posts, read 25,661,852 times
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The legacy we are left with is that the President is above the law.

Lie us into a war, put a stamp of approval on torture, obstruct justice, ... you name it, "if the President does it is not illegal."

The consequences of letting Nixon off the hook was that future Presidents could commit crimes without worrying they'll be held accountable.

It was, and is, a terrible price to pay.
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Old 06-10-2019, 03:46 PM
 
Location: Aurora Denveralis
8,712 posts, read 6,710,817 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GotHereQuickAsICould View Post
The consequences of letting Nixon off the hook was that future Presidents could commit crimes without worrying they'll be held accountable.
Nixon was completely disgraced - became the literal synonym for disgrace - and was run out of office. And every single one of his henchmen was tried and did time and was similarly disgraced. Only Liddy managed to make a further career out of his warped beliefs, and that only as a form of horrible self-parody.

I would not call that "being let off the hook." And I sure as hell wouldn't say that given the current administration, for which no one can spell hook, much less imagine one.

There was simply no point or purpose in prosecuting Nixon himself. The likely consequences of that ill-advised action have been broadly assessed by far greater minds than any in this barroom.

Terrible price? Yes. But the price was having Nixon in the office, not failing to uselessly punish him afterwards. There was simply no good road forward from January 1969. But all that seems so... quaint now. Imagine, a President who used four-letter words in the Oval Office and had an "enemies list" that included Paul Newman. Shocking.
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Old 06-10-2019, 04:01 PM
 
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
7,678 posts, read 5,410,952 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TreeBeard View Post
Ford took the right action when he pardoned Nixon at that time. There were worries what Nixon would do prior to his resignation. However, in that instance and in that time, Ford's actions were correct.
(Bold mine)

There were no worries about what Nixon would do by the time Ford pardoned Nixon.

Nixon had already resigned on August 9, 1974, one month before he was pardoned by Gerald Ford, on September 8, 1974.
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Old 06-10-2019, 04:04 PM
 
14,372 posts, read 14,194,224 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Grandstander View Post
Try applying the above sentiments to other crimes. If someone did something horrible to you or your family, murdered a member, or was responsible for the destruction of your home, would you be satisfied if the law, rather than arresting and trying the perpetrator, told you that "It was time to put all this behind us, time to move on?"

I would have liked to have seen President Nixon incarcerated, not so much for the Watergate cover-up alone, but as the traitor to the US who sabotaged LBJ's attempt at a negotiated settlement of the war in 1968, because Nixon feared that an end to the war would swing voters toward Hubert Humphrey and deny him the presidency. Thousands of Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese were to die in the years between Nixon's persuading Thieu to reject negotiations in '68, and the final end of American participation in 1973.

The loss of those lives, the sustained suffering of millions, I don't feel like just "putting that behind and moving on."
Crimes like obstruction of justice are complex. Part of the reason why is because the "victim" is not you or me its the entire justice system. Nixon avoided prison. Spiro Agnew avoided prison. One can argue that's wrong or one can look at it in a larger sense. Having to resign these offices in disgrace is a huge fall from power. Its a denial of a good place in history. Its a virtually unimaginable loss of prestige. People who don't rise to the top don't understand it. I would submit that even without imprisonment Nixon suffered hugely. These are factors that should be considered in terms of a guilty plea, a pardon, and sentencing. More importantly, the country would have been put through the spectacle of a trial of a former president lasting weeks than ending in a guilty verdict and imprisonment. We needed to move forward at that time and deal instead with issues involving the war in the Middle East, the oil embargo, inflation, and an energy crisis. Nixon's pardon made that process a bit easier.

I know well the incident you refer too in 1968 and it may well have elected Nixon president. Nixon's opponent, Humphrey, ran an exceedingly close race. Nixon got 43.4% of the popular vote. Humphrey got 42.7%. Still, this is something that hasn't been proven in a court of law. In the end, its much like people who say "Clinton did this" or "Johnson did that". They may have or they may not. The devil may be in the details. What I am comfortable saying is that Nixon clearly committed obstruction of justice because his own words in the White House tapes convict him.
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Old 06-10-2019, 04:21 PM
 
Location: King County, WA
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Power attracts the corruptible. About the best we can do is have the two parties constantly policing each other, which they are highly motivated to do. Nixon was bounced out for this reason.
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Old 06-10-2019, 04:43 PM
 
Location: east TN
264 posts, read 198,857 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Quietude View Post
I leave you to it with the thought that on my bucket list is a visit to RMN's grave in Whittier, small vial of liquid waste for sprinkling surreptitiously in hand.

Nah....be more fun to dig him up and take him shopping.


On inflation:

"Bread will NEVER be a dollar a loaf......Gas will NEVER be a dollar a gallon". I watched him saying it and thought 'what a lying twit'.
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Old 06-10-2019, 05:27 PM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
48,564 posts, read 24,027,972 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jbgusa View Post
We still don't know whether a removed President has recourse to the Courts on appeal from a Senate "conviction." If you were around in 1974 you would not want to have found out, either.
The Senate convened as a court enjoys an exceptional status and is not otherwise a part of the judiciary system. It is not an actual court, it is the legislative branch exercising the one judicial function the Constitution permits. The US Supreme Court would have no jurisdiction over a court which was not part of the judicial branch.
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Old 06-10-2019, 07:16 PM
 
Location: West Virginia
16,626 posts, read 15,574,252 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jbgusa View Post
We still don't know whether a removed President has recourse to the Courts on appeal from a Senate "conviction." If you were around in 1974 you would not want to have found out, either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grandstander View Post
The Senate convened as a court enjoys an exceptional status and is not otherwise a part of the judiciary system. It is not an actual court, it is the legislative branch exercising the one judicial function the Constitution permits. The US Supreme Court would have no jurisdiction over a court which was not part of the judicial branch.
While I think it makes sense that there would be no recourse from a Senate vote, it's neveer been tried, so we really don't know what the SCOTUS would do.

Most people seem to think that removal from office via an impeachment conviction is the final recourse, but the Constitution does not say that a President removed from office cannot be tried for crimes he may have committed.
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Old 06-10-2019, 08:15 PM
 
Location: Iowa
3,318 posts, read 4,112,617 times
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Ultimately, the prosecution of Watergate started as a political attack on the president by operatives in the opposing party, mainly reporters and lawyers. It started as partisan in nature, and evolved into something bigger, but in the minds of the public vs what a lawyer might say, do people really think the cover up crimes were more serious? He got a few officials to lie and quash the investigation of a burglary, which was more along the lines of a spy game prank than a real burglary, which was supposed to net something of value, lol. The offenders were not stealing from the public, only fishing for information and perhaps later they stole from Nixon's campaign fund via blackmail for the cover up money, but there was nothing really violent, sexual, or any big rip off from public funds involved, it was a prank, spy games that went wrong.

The DNC was located in the Watergate complex which was Nixon's wasp nest, half the administration lived there and I think it was done 90% for the fun of it, with little expectation they would get anything of any real value. Do the cover up activities for this type of crime, in which the president ultimately turned over the evidence to prove his own guilt (which he did not have to do), really warrant a prison sentence on top of being removed from office? I think not, but really, it might have been better for Nixon if he did get convicted and spent a year or two in jail. In the minds of the public, it would have been easier to forgive him later, and easier for him to rehabilitate himself which he did a remarkable job of anyway. I think a lot less people would hate him, had he done some jail time.

Nixon's economic and environmental accomplishments were monumental, as for economics, it was a time where economic experimentation was necessary because the S was about to hit the fan. Wage and price controls were part of the learning process, altho these measures failed, I believe these measures can still be used by the government today, in the medical sector, to keep runaway greed in check. The petrodollar system which replaced Bretton Woods was to become a great windfall/tool for future administrations and used to advance the world economy far beyond what would otherwise be possible. Nixon gave us a lot of new tools for future administrations to sharpen or dull. Nixon had the farm economy booming until the end of the 1970's, with the grain contracts he negotiated with Russia. China was another tool Nixon gave us, a very sharp and dangerous tool, sometimes you should not give children (congress) such dangerous things to play with, because injury is quite possible with the kind of power Nixon gave us.
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Old 06-10-2019, 08:51 PM
 
Location: TN/NC
34,932 posts, read 31,062,157 times
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Assuming he wasn't president, probably.
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