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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.
I read a lot of complete nonsense here, but this post sets a new standard. It's 1970s political history as slowly explained by a Fox news commentator to what they think is a really stupid audience.
All President Nixon needed to do was say "YES, I/we did it, they did it in the past and well will ALL do it again in the future" then that would be it!
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.
Yes. And during that time in between his resignation and the pardon, Watergate continued to freeze the entire government and the nation into a paralysis.
Ford wanted the United States to get back on its feet and back to business. Nixon was the last conspirator who had neither been indicted nor on the way to trial, so when Ford pardoned him, it was like the last shoe finally dropping. And Watergate quickly faded into an ending.
It was highly probably that Nixon would have been indicted after he resigned, but a solid year of Watergate was enough for the nation, and an indictment would have prolonged it by months more.
After his resignation, Nixon's disgrace was indeed punishment enough. I was around, watched it all daily along with everyone else in the country, and if Nixon's opponents believed disgrace was enough; no one wanted him punished with imprisonment. That was seen as a black mark on the nation more than a black mark on Nixon by most folks.
Ford's decision did meet controversy, and there was some suspicion of a conspiracy, but most folks, even if they disagreed, were glad Watergate ended with the pardon.
But the pardon failed to lighten the national mood much. I remember that year as being one of the gloomiest in my life, and that everyone else felt as bad too. Both sides felt bad and let down for the rest of that year. It was as if the entire nation went straight from deep anger into deep depression. It was a terrible year.
What punishment? He went on to live the life of an elder statesman with a heavy schedule of speaking engagements. He wrote books, campaigned for Reagan, traveled and met with foreign leaders, ... Even joined Ford and Carter representing the U.S at Anwar Sadat's funeral.
Nixon refused a subpoena to appear at the trial of three of his former aides—Dean, Haldeman, and John Ehrlichman—claiming he had phlebitis. Judge Sirica excused him.
Obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress were the three articles of impeachment being considered. There were two others they couldn't agree on, but allegations against Nixon included improper use of government agencies, accepting gifts in office, personal finances, taxes, ... I believe he ended up paying some of the taxes he owed, but that was it.
I was in college at the time and I don't recall any great sense of relief there or in the farming community I agree up in.
The people I knew thought he was a liar and a crook who got away with it.
It is taken as an article of faith that the USA can maintain civil order only if at least one percent of the adult male population is held in exemplary incarceration at any given time. That's good enough for me -- keep throwing everybody in the clink. It falls under the mantra of "sending the right message".
I read a lot of complete nonsense here, but this post sets a new standard. It's 1970s political history as slowly explained by a Fox news commentator to what they think is a really stupid audience.
At the beginning, it seemed so unbelievable that Nixon had anything to do with the Watergate burglars, the only people who tried to make the connection were the Washington Post, of which the owner on down, hated Nixon, and none of the other papers were running the story or picking up on anything the W Post uncovered. On the prosecution side, it was people working with the W Post looking into the break in team, hard core liberal prosecutors like Dartis and Gerstein down in Florida, whom got information from a secret informer still unidentified to this day, who led them to the bank accounts of the burglars, and led Gerstein to the print shop in Miami where the burglars developed their film from the first break in, a couple weeks earlier. To spite all this, most people did not care much about the Watergate story, and the cover up was successful until James McCord spilled the beans on the eve of sentencing, on who his bosses were, Liddy, Hunt and Dean. So it started as partisan politics, people working with turncoats within the administration who had an ax to grind, like Mark Felt.
You know, getting back to that wage and price control thing, isn't that what 30+ developed countries use with their UHC systems? Caps on prices, caps on profit margins, share holders taking a back seat, ect ect. I don't think the concept is totally worthless for all things, all the time. It has a place for certain things.
I tend to believe Ford lost more because of his awkwardness and "no soviet domination in poland" remark in the campaign, which make Carter look better, and Carter did run a pretty good campaign in '76.
It is taken as an article of faith that the USA can maintain civil order only if at least one percent of the adult male population is held in exemplary incarceration at any given time. That's good enough for me -- keep throwing everybody in the clink. It falls under the mantra of "sending the right message".
Back in the day the British and the French had overseas penal colonies for those the state deemed to be not following the program. Out of sight out of mind.
I tend to believe Ford lost more because of his awkwardness and "no soviet domination in poland" remark in the campaign, which make Carter look better, and Carter did run a pretty good campaign in '76.
It was not, by any standard, one of the more distinguished elections. Nixon's shadow, five-o'clock or otherwise, did Ford no good and probably tipped the balance to Saint Jimmy.
At the beginning, it seemed so unbelievable that Nixon had anything to do with the Watergate burglars, the only people who tried to make the connection were the Washington Post, of which the owner on down, hated Nixon, and none of the other papers were running the story or picking up on anything the W Post uncovered. On the prosecution side, it was people working with the W Post looking into the break in team, hard core liberal prosecutors like Dartis and Gerstein down in Florida, whom got information from a secret informer still unidentified to this day, who led them to the bank accounts of the burglars, and led Gerstein to the print shop in Miami where the burglars developed their film from the first break in, a couple weeks earlier. To spite all this, most people did not care much about the Watergate story, and the cover up was successful until James McCord spilled the beans on the eve of sentencing, on who his bosses were, Liddy, Hunt and Dean. So it started as partisan politics, people working with turncoats within the administration who had an ax to grind, like Mark Felt.
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Yes, as we all know, the problem is never the criminal, the problem is the people who report the crime, identify the criminal and prosecute the criminal.
And just think, President Nixon could have utterly frustrated all those enemies you list above by not engaging in criminal activity. That would have taught them a lesson.
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