...five guys got busted for breaking into an office in the Watergate Hotel.
Thirty-four years later, after the Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush administrations, high school history students across the nation wonder just what the big deal was about the whole affair...
(We'll let Ford slide: Never assume malice where stupidity will suffice. If Saddam had succeeded in bagging Bush Sr., and then the world had blown up under a Quayle administration, could you have honestly assumed Smilin' Dan had done it on purpose?)
Don't forget the other side of the conspiracy- Bush Sr. told Nixon to resign, as he was chairman of the Republicn Party.
ReplyDeleteWhen Carter came into the Presidency and fired Bush Sr. from heading up the the CIA, he reportedly asked Bush, "are you going back to your law practice now?"
Bush 41 replied 'I'm not a lawyer'.
...and he isn't.
Yeah, Bush41 and 43 are just trying to stick it to the Democrats for past grievances...riiiight ...
Regards,
Rabbit.
Sorry for the drift, but...
Oh, on another yet similar note, anyone recall that John Murtha was snagged in the ABSCAM sting years ago? He was turned loose through congressional pressure and the allegations were dropped.
Sorry, I have to disagree. That later administrations committed egregious and blatantly illegal acts does not excuse an earlier administration for their crimes. It just means the later ones need to get smacked down all the harder.
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm not saying it excuses it; I'm just saying that the national shock and dismay it triggered back then wouldn't happen today. We've become pretty desensitized to scandal.
ReplyDeleteThe reason Ford pardoned Nixon is obvious: a trial of Nixon would have occupied the front page of every paper every day. No one would have even remembered that Ford was President.
ReplyDeleteFord's error, of course. was in thinking that it made any difference that he was President.