We spoke abo
ut pardons in this unit, so here is a link from Wikipedia that tells how many people were pardoned by each president and who are the ones that were notable.President Gerald R. Ford's Presidential Pardon of Richard Nixon is captured by YouTube here. Wonder how long it would have taken to unravel the Watergate scandal if we had the Youdia (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and 24 Hr. News) back in the day?
9 comments:
It's interesting to see the stark differences in numbers of pardons from the Whig Presidencies to the stewardship Presidencies more common in today's politics. In general, the numbers go up as history unfolds.
I have always thought pardoning was an interesting Presidential power. It almost seems like the Chief Executive is above the law in some ways, or at least his buddies are. But I think the pardon can definitely be an effective political tool when used in certain instances. For example, Ford's pardoning of Nixon. While some might argue that he was his VP, he was just helping a pal our of trouble when he really should have been punished. But had Ford left Nixon to go to jail and to have the U.S. president be branded as a felon is not exactly encouragement to the American people. He lost his office and was publicly humiliated, as well he should have been. But granting him a pardon, though technically putting him "above" the law in a sense, avoided the humiliation of the entire population.
I think the differences in pardon are mostly political. I counted that Clinton pardoned 3 Democratic politicians, not to mention his own brother, and George W. Bush pardoned a similar number of Republicans. For my take on the most famous pardon, that being Ford's pardon of Nixon. I agree with John that although it is not effective to put a president or any member of the population "above the law", it would of had terrible international consequences to put the president of the USA in prison. We're not Illinois. By the way Blago is clearly innocent, there is no question that he was terrible governor who was full of himself and his hair. But he is owed an apology by the people of Illinois for wrongly accusing him for political gain. Pat Quinn should pardon him on the one count he was found guilty of. By the way I have never understood why governors always wait till the end of their terms to pardon people. I think it is a terrible waste to make those people that are going to be pardoned rot in jail and cost the tax payers money instead of just pardoning off the back.
I think it's also interesting to consider what Mr. Wolak said about how much of Watergate would have been revealed had such a scandal taken place today with the 24 hour news cycle and the advent of YouTube and popular media. Not only would such instances be more commonplace, it would also be more difficult for presidents, constantly under scrutiny, to get away with such things and more importantly, to consider such risky moves without a certain amount of certainty that they wouldn't be caught.
I think the Presidential Pardon should be gotten rid of, as it allows the President to protect people from the laws he is supposed to be executing. Others can commit crimes for the President's interests and when they get caught, they'll be given a pardon before the President or anyone high up gets found out. If a court finds someone guilty of a crime, they shouldn't be able to escape punishment just because they are in the party or work for the president.
Presidential pardons is a way that will allow the president to get away with almost anything. It shows the true power that the executive office holds, especially if a president could pardon a terrorist (not that it would happen), but it shows the flaws in the system. Looking at the number of pardons throughout history, it seems to be that more and more people have been pardoned within the last decade than over the last century. The cause of this could be anything, but it could go back to the fact that media plays an important role in the elections today. We expect a president to not only know what they are talking about, but they must also be an idol and a role model and a public figurehead who would represent the american people.
If the Youdia of today had existed in the past, the scandal would have taken place much faster. With today's networking, information travels faster than ever. This increase in information would have exposed Nixon faster and would have been much more humiliating. The amount of people invested in the story would have been so great that Ford's pardon would be political suicide. Too many people would have been upset with his decision to place Nixon "above the law" that not many would have been very supportive of him or his decisions.
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