Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

Should Ford Have Pardoned Nixon?

With the passing of former President Gerald Ford, the blogosphere is abuzz with rehashes of President Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon. (See, e.g., Mark Tapscott's roundup post.) I was 14 when Ford pardoned Nixon and I remember a profound sense of relief, because it had seemed like the country was going down the tubes. Viet Nam had ended in a mess, which was a particularly important issue for those of us who lived in military families, but the whole country was still badly divided. The cultural revolution of the 60s was still working its way through society. The Soviet Union was still poised to roll through the Fulda Gap. The 1973 Yom Kippur War had scared everybody with the possibility of igniting World War III. The Arab oil embargo had led to massive gas lines (scaring this incipient driver) and plunged the country into a serious recession. Indeed, the economy was struggling with inflation and flirting with stagflation.

The last thing the country needed was a protracted and divisive trial. The Constitutional system of checks and balances had worked the way it's supposed to, with the threat of impeachment driving a corrupt and dishonest President from office.