Sunday, September 08, 2024

The man with the most wisdom to offer on the Trump indictment


Image result for president ford pardon images

(My new American Thinker post)

What else can I tell you?  D.A. Bragg's indictment smells of pure political vengeance.  Even former A.G. William Barr calls it "pathetically weak case."  We've heard the words "pathetic" and "weak" about this case quite a bit.

We've crossed a line, and my guess is that former presidents Obama, Clinton and incumbent Biden know that what goes around comes around.  Not a threat — just reality.  In baseball, you hit my star, and I'll nail yours.  In politics, we investigate each other, and the country suffers.

Let's go back to the Nixon pardon, or the last time that a U.S. president was facing criminal charges.  Enter President Ford, or a man who understood how dangerous it was to go after a former president.  It became President Ford's biggest and most courageous decision.

September 8, 1974 was the day that President Ford announced a pardon for President Nixon, his predecessor.  As I remember, it happened on a Sunday morning.  My parents and I saw the TV coverage as we ate lunch.  My father's initial reaction was that it made sense, but it would be politically difficult with the midterms two months away.  He was prophetic, because the Democrats pounded the pardon and scored big.

President Ford won in the end.  Years later, the JFK Library Foundation presented him its "2001 Profile in Courage Award."  The award celebrated the fact that President Ford put country over his political ambitions.  And he did.

President Ford left politics in 1977 and died in 2006.  The pardon looks better and better with age, and so does the 30-month "accidental" Ford presidency.  He put the nation first, and we need something like that today, no matter how you feel about Trump.

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