Jimbo wrote: Fri Jun 10, 2022 2:25 pm
DaveA wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 8:13 pm
Echoing others' sentiments: just 'cause heads
should roll doesn't mean they will.
It's interesting, because since around when Trump took office I've seen Watergate bandied about a good deal, sometimes with Woodward and Bernstein themselves as panel guests. And yet, when since then has a top-ranking U.S. official been prematurely ousted or gone to jail? It's happened to mayors, occasionally, sure, but no POTUS since Nixon has been ex-communicated from political life. Rather than Watergate being a precedent, in legal terms, the way things have played out, it seems like more of a fluke.
From time to time I think about the irreparable harm Gerald Ford did to our country by pardoning Nixon. Not only by ensuring no president will ever face consequences for their actions, but also if he hadn't done that he probably would have been reelected, and the malaise of the Carter years would have fallen on him, making it so Reagan wouldn't have gotten elected in 1980.
A good point. There were mixed messages, there was inconsistency there. Nixon getting ousted but then pardoned. Hmmm. Like, you'll get in trouble for that shady shit, but not
too much trouble--we'll be soft ultimately, as we want to leave things open for future presidents, so they don't have to worry about actually spending time in jail cells for potential misdeeds. And our constituency will now know we half-stepped, undermining their belief in us, which as you say in the case of Ford, was/is a losing strategy.
If Watergate was a precedent of sorts, if nothing else, it may be that in the powers that be behaving that way afterwards, going forward, presidents were indeed tacitly assured of being insulated somewhat, beyond whatever shame/outrage came their way, even if they were dethroned like Nixon. Clinton
knew he'd never do time for perjury, Bush Jr.
knew he wouldn't be prosecuted for war crimes/starting a war on false pretenses, etc. (Of course, in the latter case, though, if Obama had gone hard and held Bush accountable that would've created a HUGE clusterfuck for him, least of all because most Democrats went along with it at the time, the war.)