I just saw this on TV a minute ago.. I don't believe any articles on it have been made yet.
EDIT: Here... http://www.cnn.com/
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I bet he was delicious.
(seriously, that's too bad.)
(seriously, that's too bad.)
Famous dead people come in 3s, you know. WHO WILL BE NEXT??!
Should be Tammy Faye next. She's down to 68 pounds with cancer according to her son. :(
RIP Mr. Ford. The pall bearers should drop his casket, just for old times sake ;)
RIP Mr. Ford. The pall bearers should drop his casket, just for old times sake ;)
*chortle* I'll always remember him as Homer's neighbour.
I can't believe there's that much of an age gap between Ford and Bush Snr.
I can't believe there's that much of an age gap between Ford and Bush Snr.
Ford, the guy nobody voted for. It was certainly a shock for the American people when he became president. Undoubtedly, that counted for something in his defeat by Jimmy Peanut.
Not one of the major presidents here, he didn't do very much except clean up Nixon's shit (Vietnam), and start some token 'inflation-battles'. Oh, and he pardoned Nixon, which was was highly injust.
Not one of the major presidents here, he didn't do very much except clean up Nixon's shit (Vietnam), and start some token 'inflation-battles'. Oh, and he pardoned Nixon, which was was highly injust.
Who would have thought that Bush Sr. could be this funny...
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/1756/im:/061227/480/ny14312270555
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/1756/im:/061227/480/ny14312270555
[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Bubbles Puddifoot wrote: [/QUOTENAME]RIP Mr. Ford. The pall bearers should drop his casket, just for old times sake ;)[/QUOTE]
Hahahaha! Second best laugh today.
Hahahaha! Second best laugh today.
The President that no-one voted for. R.I.P.
Sadly, James Brown passed away Christmas day...I'm not kidding.
[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]<font color=#FFFFFF> The Invisible Man wrote: [/QUOTENAME]Sadly, James Brown passed away Christmas day...I'm not kidding.[/QUOTE]
No one said you were, considering the thread about it is still on the front page.
No one said you were, considering the thread about it is still on the front page.
Just a question for Caspar....why was it unjust to pardon Nixon? Granted the man was the worst president in history (until now, that is) and many wanted him persecuted. But he recognized then what many now recognize with the benefit of hindsight....the pardon was needed to help the country move on. The country was already going through a constitutional crisis (could he even be president if he was never elected?) and was in the middle of the recession and the Vietnam mess...the last thing the country needed on top of all of that shit was a long and drawn out trial that would accomplish nothing but futher undermine the faith in government that most people already had after Watergate. He recognized the need to put the past in the past and move on to get started solving the issues that needed to be solved, even though he didn't get time to solve them. Actually I think it was a courageous decision, because he knew it would be very unpopular and could (and indeed did) cost him the re-election campaign two years later.
And this has been aboslutely nuts, to tell you the truth. I'm at my parents house, which is 45 minutes north of Grand Rapids, where he was born and raised. They are going to bury him in GR, in the museum he dedicated and has named after him. Boy I'm glad I'm not going to be anywhere near GR that day....it will be insanity down there, he is extremely well beloved in this area (he was the congressional rep, and was re-elected 13 times in a row by HUGE margins)
And this has been aboslutely nuts, to tell you the truth. I'm at my parents house, which is 45 minutes north of Grand Rapids, where he was born and raised. They are going to bury him in GR, in the museum he dedicated and has named after him. Boy I'm glad I'm not going to be anywhere near GR that day....it will be insanity down there, he is extremely well beloved in this area (he was the congressional rep, and was re-elected 13 times in a row by HUGE margins)
Why I find it injust, is because it gives off a clear signal, namely: if a president commits a crime, and he resigns, he gets off, or, in other words: presidency offers immunity.
Any other person would have been persecuted to the maximum extent of the law, and pardoning Nixon gives off the signal that he was somehow more than 'mere mortals', which is a very bad thing, especially since presidents after him have shown to increasingly take power into their own hands (most recently Bush with his disgusting Bolton-scam), passing by parliament.
Any other person would have been persecuted to the maximum extent of the law, and pardoning Nixon gives off the signal that he was somehow more than 'mere mortals', which is a very bad thing, especially since presidents after him have shown to increasingly take power into their own hands (most recently Bush with his disgusting Bolton-scam), passing by parliament.
[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]<b><font color = "crimson"> ThomasQuinn wrote: [/QUOTENAME]Why I find it injust, is because it gives off a clear signal, namely: if a president commits a crime, and he resigns, he gets off, or, in other words: presidency offers immunity.
Any other person would have been persecuted to the maximum extent of the law, and pardoning Nixon gives off the signal that he was somehow more than 'mere mortals', which is a very bad thing, especially since presidents after him have shown to increasingly take power into their own hands (most recently Bush with his disgusting Bolton-scam), passing by parliament.[/QUOTE]
First off, the US doesn't have a parliament, but I realize you probably meant to say Congress, so I'll let that one slide.
Second, EVERY President ever in office has committed crimes they would have been persecuted for if they weren't the president, so it's not like there Nixon is a major exception. Do you think any of the Presidents since Nixon will be brought up on charges against them? Clinton won't ever get charged in the world court for the stuff he's done (Whitewater Scandal), and I guarantee you Bush Jr. won't get brought up on charges either. Hell, Roosevelt never got brought to trial for the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Operating under the assumption that Justice is always fair and blind is a nice concept, and isn't neccessarily a bad goal. But lets face reality here...Justice can be bought, has been bought, will continue to be bought and isn't anywhere near blind. What Ford did in pardoning Nixon isn't nearly as damaging to anyone as what Bush is doing now, or what Clinton did when he was in office (there were a lot of shady dealings going on there that most people don't like to acknowledge). At least Ford's pardon didn't kill anyone, and I don't think it caused any major disruptions in American's views of politics, since the views were already at their most jaded at that time, and have only become more jaded since with the acts of succeeding Presidents. You may not agree with his decision, that's fine, you don't have to, but on the damaging scale to America from 1-10, I'd say this pardon barely rates at all.
Thirdly, the trend towards the executive branch becoming more powerful isn't reliant on Nixon's pardon...that was in the works long before Nixon came into office, and has more to do with shifting perceptions of what the executive branch should be and what it needs to respond to than on "Well, we did this in the past, so let's push the envelope." (For example, see the war against communism and the "domino theory" used by Kennedy and his predecessors) I'd even say terrorism (a relatively recent phenomenon in it's present form, which coincidently started in the 1970's) has more to do with expanding executive power than pardoning criminals. There is nothing more convienient in a power grab than to have an enemy you have to fight who is deadly, but who you can't see, and we can't tell you about or they'll get us all, so you just have to trust us to handle the situation. Besides, what more harm could Nixon have done after he resigned in disgrace? Nothing.
Any other person would have been persecuted to the maximum extent of the law, and pardoning Nixon gives off the signal that he was somehow more than 'mere mortals', which is a very bad thing, especially since presidents after him have shown to increasingly take power into their own hands (most recently Bush with his disgusting Bolton-scam), passing by parliament.[/QUOTE]
First off, the US doesn't have a parliament, but I realize you probably meant to say Congress, so I'll let that one slide.
Second, EVERY President ever in office has committed crimes they would have been persecuted for if they weren't the president, so it's not like there Nixon is a major exception. Do you think any of the Presidents since Nixon will be brought up on charges against them? Clinton won't ever get charged in the world court for the stuff he's done (Whitewater Scandal), and I guarantee you Bush Jr. won't get brought up on charges either. Hell, Roosevelt never got brought to trial for the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Operating under the assumption that Justice is always fair and blind is a nice concept, and isn't neccessarily a bad goal. But lets face reality here...Justice can be bought, has been bought, will continue to be bought and isn't anywhere near blind. What Ford did in pardoning Nixon isn't nearly as damaging to anyone as what Bush is doing now, or what Clinton did when he was in office (there were a lot of shady dealings going on there that most people don't like to acknowledge). At least Ford's pardon didn't kill anyone, and I don't think it caused any major disruptions in American's views of politics, since the views were already at their most jaded at that time, and have only become more jaded since with the acts of succeeding Presidents. You may not agree with his decision, that's fine, you don't have to, but on the damaging scale to America from 1-10, I'd say this pardon barely rates at all.
Thirdly, the trend towards the executive branch becoming more powerful isn't reliant on Nixon's pardon...that was in the works long before Nixon came into office, and has more to do with shifting perceptions of what the executive branch should be and what it needs to respond to than on "Well, we did this in the past, so let's push the envelope." (For example, see the war against communism and the "domino theory" used by Kennedy and his predecessors) I'd even say terrorism (a relatively recent phenomenon in it's present form, which coincidently started in the 1970's) has more to do with expanding executive power than pardoning criminals. There is nothing more convienient in a power grab than to have an enemy you have to fight who is deadly, but who you can't see, and we can't tell you about or they'll get us all, so you just have to trust us to handle the situation. Besides, what more harm could Nixon have done after he resigned in disgrace? Nothing.