Pardon Me?
[2007-01-02 10:20]

The cable news channels have been doing retrospectives on former US President Gerald Ford over the past few days. One issue they've covered, repeatedly, was President Ford's decision to pardon former President Nixon. In all cases (that I've seen), the news channels mention that this decision was very unpopular at the time, but they also noted that history has proven this to be the correct choice, as it was necessary for the nation to heal after suffering the injuries of Vietnam and Watergate.

Now, it might just be my natural contrariness speaking, but I don't buy either of these premises: that Ford was proven to be correct, nor that America has healed at all.

If I had been alive (politically) when all this occurred, I might feel differently. But I look at the past and current mindset of the nation and, from what I can tell, it's not good.

According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, trust in the government never rose above 50% between 1974 and 1997. In fact, it continued to decline between 1974 and around 1980. Similarly, a 2006 poll by Zogby International shows trust in the government to be very low.

Granted, these polls are hardly scientific evidence, but they accurately reflect my level of trust in our government and, I think, the nation's.

Ford's pardon of Nixon appears, to me, to have been done out of convenience rather than morality. Whatever happened to America being a "nation of laws"? Instead, Ford decided that things had gotten so bad that the only way to extricate ourselves was to grant amnesty to a criminal and sweep it all under the carpet.

To make matters worse, Ford received the Profile in Courage Award in 2001 for his decision. At the presentation, Caroline Kennedy stated "As President, he made a controversial decision of conscience to pardon former president Nixon and end the national trauma of Watergate." [1]

Pardon me, but I call bullshit on that. By that rationale, we should pardon any criminal whose trial would be long and gruelling. This action, in my opinion, does not lead to a better America. Nor does it even live up to ideal that the Profile in Courage Award supposedly honors: "to do what is right, rather than what is expedient."

All this does is demonstrate that there are two Americas and two sets of laws: the one for the rich and powerful, and the one for the rest of us. The end result is the culture of corruption in Washington, and the pervasive (and justified) cynicism of the American people.

The trauma has not ended and, in my opinion, we haven't healed at all -- we've just been forced to live with the injury.