Gerald Ford always seemed like a decent guy, from an era when it was possible to be a "moderate" Republican and not live the political life of a complete hypocrite. But as the above photo of Rumsfeld, Ford and Cheney demostrates, Ford's legacy — at least the one that is wounding us all so greviously at the moment — is one he might not want to be remembered for. As Digby says, in explaining a vote cast for Ford:
I did not understand the zombie nature of Republicanism and had no way of knowing that unless you drive a metaphorical stake through the heart of GOP crooks and liars, they will be back, refreshed and and ready to screw up the country in almost exactly the same way, within just a few years. In those days, I couldn't imagine that the Republicans would ever elect someone worse than Nixon. I thought we had gone back to "normal" where nice moderate guys like Jerry and Ike would keep the seat warm until the real leaders would return. Live and learn.
When I heard Bill Clinton speak in Waterbury this past summer, he was trying to triangulate his differences with Lieberman and repeating his "forgive and forget" mantra about the past, calling for everyone to go forward in unision. I guess the point is that there is no unision possible with the extreme right, they do not compromise and they will steal everything that isn't nailed down. Letting the Cheney's and Rumsfeld's (and Libby's) have a medal and a pat on the head in the interest of "sparing the nation the scandal" (as Ford supposedly did when pardoning Richard Nixon) just means, as Digby says, that the same zombies will re-emerge and commit the same crimes again and again, or their heirs will, thinking there is no price to be paid.
As Steve Benen notes over at K-Drum's place today (I just wanted to say "K-Drum"), there is speculation as to whether the Democrats are going to be naughty or nice in the majority. I just hope they don't wind up a bunch of co-dependent saps who give in to the GOP demands for quarter they never gave, and I most certainly hope that they do not accept the Clintonian notion of no accountability in the interest of moving forward. That's hooey.
As Digby says, it's stake-in-the-heart time for the right wing crazies and the crooks. Anything less is short-term political opportunism that shirks responsibility and endangers the future.
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Could it be?
Jane! Christy!
Howie’s back!!!
Hootie Hoooot~!
Oh….Cheney and Rumsfeld suck asssssss.
Don’t forget the garlic and Holy water…….
I’m already sick of hearing the media fawning over Ford’s legacy. To me, he was a traitor and an ambitious coward, who traded his principles for a couple years in the Oval Office. The depth of Ford’s betrayal to the American people rankles me to no end.
Ford ultimately gave permission to Reagan for his awful policies, like the Iran-Contra scandal; and to Bush/Cheney for their absolute abdication of any loyalty to the Constitution. Ford said it was “OK”.
I don’t believe in “forgive and forget”…it’s too easy for people to repeat the same shit if we do.
That sure was a puzzling and disappointing decision Clinton made, not to go after iran-Contra in the interests of moving forward, and look what it got him anyway. I already had my party hat on when he was elected, just waiting for him to go after them asshats.
Same here. It’s not just the current batch of jerks and crooks I’m concerned with, it’s all the future ones as well. Right now, impeachment, as actually practiced by our government, isn’t for misconduct in running the government. It’s only used if the opposition controls Congress, and then any excuse is enough. That the Republicans in Congress made no attempt to rein in Bush may have done as much damage to this country as any act of any Congress in history. In my worst moods I wonder if we can survive as a democracy under these circumstances.
FITZ.
And SOON.
Jane sez:
I propose a new 12-step program that every Democrat is absolutely required to join.
Hello, “Republi
canCON-ANON” anyone?Cheney and Rumsfeld look like a couple used car salesmen in that picture above. I wouldn’t trust them even if they let me open the hood.
Jane, when you said: “…there is no unision possible with the extreme right, they do not compromise and they will steal everything that isn’t nailed down”, you summed it all up as succinctly and accurately as possible. Bingo!
Anyone here who hasn’t yet arrived at this conclusion should take these words to heart, because understanding this concept is necessary to save what’s left of our democracy.
If we re going for vampire metaphors, I would suggest that we dispense with “stake through the heart” which has a somewhat sophomorich “payback is a bitch”, “tit for tat” feel to it.
Perhaps the better vampire eradication method to refer to is exposure to sunlight. Once Congress begins engaging in mture, thoughtful, ACTIVE oversight and sheds a little light on what has been going on, well, vampires get vaporized when light is shined on them and their nasty activities, don’t they?
As Digby says, it’s stake-in-the-heart time for the right wing crazies and the crooks. Anything less is short-term political opportunism that shirks responsibility and endangers the future.
Perhaps the better vampire eradication method to refer to is exposure to sunlight.
Why not both. Stake in the heart. Then shine a light to make sure. Repeat.
Hey.. does this mean we will one day have to give b43 a state funeral too? I’m having enough trouble with the idea that our disaster of national significance (I believe that’s FEMA’s official term for one of their FUBARs) gets a library.
1,377 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND..
Citizen Hamsher and the Firepup Patriots:
“…it’s stake-in-the-heart time for the right wing crazies and the crooks.”
That means that the Democrats hafta have a little exorcism and anoint all in their caucus with garlic and holy water before takin’ the stake and hammer to the fascists. Mrs. Clinton and her valets, Joe Lik*derman and Rahm Emmanuel,have gotta be dealt with if the Democrats are gunna even get close ta the BIG Nazis.
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION…THERE’S NUTHIN’ WRONG WITH PAY-BACK!!
in the immortal words of yosemite sam…
hangin’s too good fer ‘em!
abrams, poindexter, ledeen, north…these are the traitors and fifth columnists directly responsible for the deadly situation we are all in.
oh, and don’t forget that what these guys and their corporate pals are really good at… looting the treasury for their benefit.
can you say ’silverado’?
Caption to photo:
‘Bubble bubble toil and trouble’
I get sick of seeing the same people come back to do more damage,over and over. It keeps going generation after generation. And it seems each new generation gets nastier,steals more and is more ruthless than the next. I shudder to think for example who the next Kissinger or Cheney is.
that should be” more ruthless than the last”,not “the next” in my #16 above..geesh.
scarecrow @
12
further instructions here
not so much for Ford, I think he couldn’t help himself, but for all the others who have screwed us over and over again since then.
Hee hee! Cheney with hair!
Connecticut Bob @
4
Yep. Pulling out my DVD sets of West Wing. It will help me feel better for a while anyway.
My point being, two wrongs don’t make a right. Revenge is not our goal. Oversight and accountability with full due process fo law protections for all wrongdoers. This leads to convictions that withstand appeal and, hopefully, long meaningful sentences.
I don’t want anybody to get a stake through the heart. Nope I want full, fair and public trials (like the one Irving will be getting soon) that shine a light on all the corruption and criminality that has been going on.
Much more satisfying than any act of metaphorical violence
Rev Deb, that was hilarious!
OT – Jane, in case you are around. I saw this on Democracy Now. Barbara Ehrenreich mentions James Traub’s article on wefare in New York Times Magazine (I don’t subscribe) which may or may not warrant scrutiny/snark.
Hehe. I just switched Pipeline to CNN India, to avoid the Ford coverage… since all of our networks seem to have become the Ford channel. The guy was, what, president for 800 days?
RevDeb @ 21
jerry ford is the only republican is ever NEARLY voted for.
odd seeing squeaky fromm’s name mentioned in the news before her obit.
It’s nice that Ford gets a state funeral. It will be sick to see Bush at it, all preening and pious.
looseheadprop @ 21
Okay, if you, Christy and Mary are in charge of the system, I will settle for your proposal.
Otherwise, we may need the stake in the heart.
In interviews, former President Ford spoke about the pardon as allowing him to focus as President on the nation’s business, in that more than a quarter of his time was, in his first month, devoted to issues related to Nixon’s papers, tapes, and legal status. Well, Gerry, that’s what the job entailed: dealing with the mess your predecessor left the country.
And it’s not as if Gerry Ford, undistracted once the pardon was issued, was able to manage foreign policy, the economy, or his own election to the Presidency in 1976. The pardon was issued to rehabilitate the GOP brand and make Ford’s own job easier. In that Ford’s honeymoon ended abruptly upon the pardon, he was later able to say, as are his hagiographers today, that he sealed his political fate while healing the nation. Unfortunately, the healing ended AT the pardon, and future war criminals were forced, to their later great shame, to dismantle the Imperial Republican Presidency. A case can be made that the signing statements our current occupant issues to exempt him from the law he’s signed — these stem directly from the record number of vetoes Ford sent back to Capitol Hill.
Cheney’s imperiality, Rumsfeld’s arrogance, Poppy Bush’s post-Casey secret CIA, the original October surprise, the captivation of the GOP by the radical Christianists, Ronald Reagan’s dimwittedness, GHWBush’s underhandedness, and Bush the Lesser’s messianic VisionQuest — all these can be properly laid at the feet of our Accidental President.
Probably a nice guy, with a terrific wife & family — but not even Ford’s views on women’s equality in his own home got the USA an ERA or safe, legal, and rare reproductive choice in the 21st century.
Starting with his unrelenting attacks on Justice Douglas through to his appointment of Cheney and Rumsfeld, and including his selection of Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President and Bob Dole as his running mate, Ford may be best remembered as the poorest judge of character of any President we’ve ever had.
lhp @21 – I would be very happy with driving a stake into the lock of this cabals (all of them as John Dean suggests) prison cell at the Hague.
Oh, Jane. I love you, but the names in the sentence about getting medals should not be possesives, but plurals. You are such a good example of a great writer don’t dumb it down.
BTW, I saw another version of the Cheney/Rumsfeld photo above and Cheney looked like Bob Newhart. When did he lose his sense of humour and go to the dark side?
Two words….East Timor
Blub @
13
The state funeral will be Paraguay’s responsibility, after they move to their aquifer-rich ranch.
I want accountability, be it in a tribunal or at the polls for the mess this country and the Middle East is in. No matter the political party. If I didn’t I’d be no better than the rest of the hypocrites. I want our soldiers home from Iraq, and I want a resolution to the Palestinian homeland-self rule situation. Let the chips fall where they may.
Forgive and forget? Hardly.
Admittedly, I’ve never understood why “healing the nation” rhetoric outweighs justice for high crimes and misdemeanors. Accountability gets laughed off by the next generation when they observe the paucity of justice when our “leaders” are caught red-handed.
No, I don’t find Ford’s pardon of more value to the nation than, say, a glaring object lesson to thieves and swindlers when busted for screwing the American people; however long justice would require. The lesson Ford leaves, to me, is to encourage people to vie for bigger and bigger fraud, lies, and larceny, thereby qualifying for bigger dispensation for the sake of (__fill in the blank__).
Perhaps if Ford had not swept Nixon under the rug so he could have reporters focus on his presidency, possibly George and Karl would have thought twice about their horrendous disgrace of an ‘administration.’
Ford just paved the way, with pardons, for more and slimier bastards to vie for the Big Pardon Sweepstakes.
No one above the law? Tell me another one Gerald….
And as for Bill and Hillary Clinton? As things stand now. Go to Hell!
1,377 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND..
Citizen looseheadprop:
The legal system in our country must work as “the stake-in-the-heart” to protect the people from continuing larceny and murder. If our legal system has been so corrupted and bent to the needs of the criminal class so as to let these monsters go, then we will hafta use the real thing…wake up and smell the coffee good people. These bastards are laughin’ atcha.
KEEP THE FAITH AND DON’T BE AFRAID TA DO UNTO THEM AS THEY HAVE BEEN DOIN’ TA YOU!!!
elvira cranbot @ 31
The usually even-handed Tom Brokaw surprised me today, quoting Gerry Ford as saying within the last year, “I wonder what happened to Dick Cheney.”
I blame Clinton
(for getting what Lynne would never give BigTime, despite all his ill-gotten Halliburtonbucks!)
I just want a president who isn’t hellbent on breaking the Constitution and the country, on some kind of divine mission for some lesser god in the Fundie pagan pantheon. IMO, Iraq’s a symptom, not the cause of the underlying problem, and that problem’s name is Bush. If he broke the law, he has to be held to account for it by the law. Otherwise, he’s succeeded in destroying the law.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 34
The Democrats need to learn that pragmatism doesn’t not outweigh truth and justice.
But the era of moderate Republican leadership did return, Jane. In 1992. Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we’ve had since Ike.
(And while you’re reveling in “K-Drum,” I feel an overwhelming need to write elivira cranbot. That sure falls trippingly from the fingertips!)
with principled fighters like Obama hailed as the fresh face of the Donkey Party, of course the Republican Crime Syndicate will be forced to pay a terrible price!
>snark
Just any in president in the WH, as long as it’s a Democrat, will not necessarily do for me. If I’m going to get a Democrat president in 2008 that continues the Iraq and Middle East mess, I’d just as soon let the other party take responsibility for that.
Oklahoma Kiddo @ 40
did you get censored too?
or was that only a portion of your post?
“Letting the Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s (and Libby’s) have a medal and a pat on the head in the interest of “sparing the nation the scandal” (as Ford supposedly did when pardoning Richard Nixon) just means, as Digby says, that the same zombies will re-emerge and commit the same crimes again and again”
They will never stop. Ever.
After Watergate I never expected to live to see a president worse than Richard Nixon. Sadly, I did. See a worse president, that is – living this long was OK.
I never forgave Gerald Ford for pardoning Nixon. He may have been a nice guy, but he really effed up with that pardon. Nixon should have been made an example of what happens to a president who criminally undermines America. If he had been tried and thrown in prison, do you think we would have had to suffer Bush Jr?
Let’s not repeat that mistake. Impeach. Try for capital crimes. Convict. Line Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice (insert other names) against a White House wall and execute them by firing squad. Preserve that wall, complete with bullet holes, as a national monument to remind future occupants of what happens to presidents like Bush Jr and Nixon.
It was very hard to get in a holiday mood this year.
sporkovat @ 44
That was the complete comment.
Where did the “vast right-wing conspiracy” Hillary I once so admired disappear to? There was a time I would have walked across glowing coals barefoot for this woman.
Everythingseemssoneat @ 45
I hate to say it, but the way to stop is to use Roveian tactics. You don’t stop and be nice to some guy after you’ve gotten him fired or indicted, for the sake of his family or whatever. You keep hitting him, over and over again — dig up every piece of dirt on him, investigate every offense.. and you make sure it all gets into the press… blacken his name, and, by association, that of his party, to the point that runs out of resurrection points (don’t they actually have those in that LeHaye video game?). We need a Democratic president who’s willing to allow his party mechanism to quietly do this dirty work in the background. Then these people will stop coming back, and, frankly, I’m not interested in finding common ground with that 15% wingnut fringe of the electorate that’ll be chanting resurrection spells over their graves.
looseheadprop once mentioned mandamus as a possible tool for citizens who want accountability from public officials.
hehe.. CNN pipeline has Ford on three separate video streams.
Ford, like Bush, was a dumb leader. Just think about his “Win” button to fight inflation. The man was an idiot who did not deserve to be president of anything. If Ford had let Nixon get his come-uppance in 1974, Bush would not have dared wipe his ass with the Constitution today.
All that talk that it took courage to pardon Nixon is all bull. Ford was too partisan to do what was right for the country.
Ford always struck me as a decent guy, but bfd. Earlier today on one of the “news” shows, they played a clip from the 2000 Republican convention where Ford was waxing enthusiastic for Cheney. Bleah.
The Republicans in the House are already announcing in front of god and everybody that they intend to use the Democrats’ good-faith efforts at bipartisanship to bring up issues to force Dems to take uncomfortable positions.
fkm fkm fkm!!! Why in the name of all that is holy and right would a Democrat trust a Republican with the power to do anything? Yikes and gadzooks, the Republicans are like malaria-infested mosquitos cross-bred on Mysterious Island with kudzu!
Stakes through the heart!
Round-Up at the roots!
Nets and white coats and never forget!!!
philosophicus @ 32
Henry Kissinger and Ford.
Indeed, as important as the bilateral relationship was, Jakarta’s brutal suppression of the independence movement in East Timor was a development that neither Ford nor Kissinger wanted people to remember about their time in power.
You read my mind, Jane. I fear Democratic “playnice” more than Bush/Cheney right now.
‘Fighting fire with fire’, to a point, is okay. But as a Democrat I will not support the tactics Rove has employed over the last six years. No matter the stakes. I prefer to fight these guys in the courts and the court of public opinion. Otherwise I will be just like them.
TeddySanFran @
29
Every time I’ve seen “moderate” and Ford together in the last couple of days, I have to remind myself that people have let his record be filtered through the last couple of decades of increasingly nutball conservatism.
But, Ford was one of the most conservative of all conservatives in the House at the time, and he was willing to go along with Cheney’s “out-Reagan” Reagan campaign strategy in 1976, which pushed the rhetoric ever further rightward.
And, the myth of his popularity is largely a matter of what his wife did after leaving the White House.
Let’s not forget that Henry Kissinger was still in charge of foreign policy during his tenure, that his policy’s were more hard-line than is remembered and he was no less tolerant of right-wing dictators than his successors, and that part of his legacy is that he served not just as the head of a caretaker government, but that his actions in pardoning Nixon were also an attempt to salvage a Republican Party that had grown corrupt and authoritarian–and, as future events show, he was successful in that.
Every time someone “higher up” is exempt from the consequences of his law-breaking it sends the wrong message to everybody. The law is supposed to apply to everyone equally. No person is supposed to be above or beneath the law.
If the Democrats do not impose consequences on the Republicans they will simply look like weak fools. Does anyone here think the Republicans will say, “Gee, those Democrats sure are swell fellas. We’re going to try to do better now.”? Of course they won’t. They’ll simply be confirmed in their idea that they can literally get away with anything, no matter how illegal or extreme.
Hooray for LindaR!
I have a couple of white coats, will fishing dip nets do? *s*
I feel just sick watching the nauseating coverage AND reading all the malignant bashing. It’s as if we’ve forgotten so much about that particular era, leaving an ill-begotten war, fighting a cold war, stifled with a wretched economy, all the other factors that made the 70’s what they really were, besides a tepid fake version on a television show more than 20 years later.
For example:
This is a small reflection of the country we lived in in the early and mid-70’s; Ford was a product of a Republican Party in which Goldwater thrived, predating even the ERA. We need to face the fact that WE, the American public that lived and voted in the 70’s, were responsible for Nixon, responsible for the choices that Ford made, and further responsible for everything else that happened after that.
WE, the people. WE were not ready to extend equal rights to women, although many of us fought like hell for them. If we weren’t event ready to grant more than half the citizens of this country equal rights, WE can’t very well get all twinky about the other perceived violations of rights, because WE failed ourselves.
You see, WE, the people, are apparently still unready for women to have equity in office nearly 30 years after Ford’s administration, given the ridiculous number of women ensconced in Congress. WE, the people, are still entertaining polls as to whether we are ready for a woman or a non-white American to become President; does this sound like a people who are ready?
WE, the people, failed to hold our elected representatives accountable during Iran-Contra, which enabled and empowered the ratf*ckers that were only in their 30’s during Nixon’s and Ford’s day, who had fully come into their own under Reagan’s two terms and Poppy Bush’s one term, gaining even more power in the decade-plus they had a majority in Congress after 1994.
WE, the people, cannot blame one all-too-human man who held office for a mere 895 days when WE had thirty f*cking years to take these motherf*ckers to the woodshed.
Are WE, the people, finally ready to see our own complicity in the past, and begin to do the work it will take to return to core American values under the Constitution?
Unlike any other Constitution in the world, our most sacred unifying document begins with these three words: WE, the people…
You’ll have to pardon me, I’m disgusted with the descrecration of the corpses I’ve seen over the last couple of weeks. It’s not descrecration we need, but a thorough and effective post mortem, one that looks not only at the cold body before us, but at the role that every single player had in the history preceding this death. If we do not look carefully at every aspect, including our own culpability in history, treating this only as a purgative bonfire, then we are doing little more than extending a pardon to ourselves as Ford pardoned Nixon and the party and the people that supported him.
Where exactly do WE get off, unloading all this on a single man?
/rant
I am just as pissed about the behavior of the Democrats in the last six years as I am the Republicans.
I was not aware that Rove ever fights outside of the court of public opinion. He just plays dirty in that court, and unless we want Dick or Abu or Condi to continue haunting us from the shadows, we need to play in the same court, by the same rules… Look at this Sandy Berger nonsense last week… they have some rethug operative somewhere dragging out dirt into the light of public opinion, on a political corpse 7 years after the funeral… just to keep the public distracted. And the mass media bought it too.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 56
In re healing:
Let’s also not forget the urgency with which MSM insisted that the country needed to “heal” in the wake of all that infernal contentiousness surrounding the 2000 Presidential election. Thank God for that unconstitutional but ever so healing SCOTUS decision.
And stepping back, those Iran-Contra pardons were a welcome, healing balm as well…one big fat gob of aloe vera slathered on the body politic.
Funny how the need to heal always urgently arises whenever our democracy just starts working up a head of steam.
In the words of Jackie Chiles, “Who told you to put the balm on?!”
Blub @ 49- Sometimes I think they’re all CFR- Trilateral Commission-Bilderberg stooges with slightly different management styles. Who knows, maybe the Democrats will do something.
nfbmnkes @ 66
Peanut? Is that you again?0
Where’s your mommy, darlin?
Peanut for president 2044..)
mod note: sudden burst of spam … we’re clearing as fast as possible
Siun @ 69
awww. We were having so much fun, too! Harrumph!
Hey Jacqrat! I can put them back if you like?
Rayne @ 60
The problem is, some WDC corpses, if left undesecrated, have the peculiar attribute of refusing to stay dead.
I don’t disagree with you.. that we the people are ultimately responsible. But we’re dealing with thugs here, and they use highly specialized and effective tactics to thwart the American people. As the American people, we have to reciprocate, or we just lose. Sorry to sound so Macchiavellian, but, short of a revolution (of the blood-on-the-streets kind), the rules of this game are not going to change. So let’s learn to play it well.
Jane for Prez
Christy for AG
Mary for Deputy AG
Pach for HUD Secty
Siun for Secty of State
Howie for Speaker of the House
TRex for White House Chef duties (well, maybe his momma will do it for him)
Siun @ 71
Just giving you a hard time, Siun. It’s my only form of recreation these days. {{{{{{siun}}}}}
Waxman poetic justice!
Let’s get rid of the DLC. Now there’s a novel idea.Blub @ 62
Then are we talking about just presenting the truth? Seems to me that if Democrats would just do that, and I mean really tell the truth, it just might help. I’ve heard it said “the truth shall set you free”. And I do not mean the truth according to Karl Rove or f’g chicken s’t Demos. I’m not into this Lee Atwater model. Who not incidentally repudiated his methodology not too long before his death, I believe.
Just tell the truth, Democrats, and the people will sort it out.
Rayne @ 60, do you suggest we lie down while history is rewritten, yet again?
Because that is what is happening. You want to fight these evil people, you fight them. Or suggest a good strategic reason why this or that battle should be given up for the greater good.
Stopping at corpses isn’t going to work, the right has happily accused the left of exploiting the victims of 9/11. Guess what Giuliani’s running on?
Blub, I hear you. And here’s the question:
How should the American public have responded back in 1974 to the pardon of Nixon by Gerald Ford?
Because we are going to have to revisit this question. SOON, if we do as a fellow cohort of Ford’s days under Nixon suggests, that we begin with impeachment of the ranks first, or if the course of investigations leads us to impeachment of the POTUS and VP.
I’m tired of watching people alternatingly raise up the dead man or stab him with a pitchfork, when the American public failed to do anything constructive to stop what happened.
Are we going to learn something from this and do it right this time? It’s not merely enough to say “Cut off their heads and put a stake through their hearts”…because we still have to fight the real war and win it, corpse or no corpse, stake or no stake.
The war is winning the hearts and minds of the Republicans on this or we will never get close enough to cut-and-stake — or at least I suspect that’s what happened back in the early 70’s.
In a few days the Democrats (my party) take over both houses of Congress.
ifthethunderdontgetya 75 — by now you’ve seen my response to Blub.
How ’bout that question? How should the public, who is so effing outraged today at a ninety-odd-year-old man, have handled the decision back then? Because it wasn’t just Ford that f*cked up.
If we don’t learn from that, we are going to repeat it. AND we have to sell the opposition on our learnings.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 78
Hallelujah!
Amen.
I think Rove fights with everything available. Bribes, blackmail, threats, appointments, poll fixing, lying to the public, and who knows what else.
When Ford betrayed America by pardoning Nixon, he showed he was a pol, a bought man, a nothing. He deprived Americans the opportunity to bring justice. It said, “If you’re a big shot, no worries!” It deprived Americans the opportunity to see if their court system really could work in the ultimate cases. What a shithead.
I agree whole-heartedly with you and Digby about this and hope our newly elected Democrats understand. Besides being the right thing to do, it is what the people who elected them want.
Rayne @ 79
Don’t have an answer but it’s an excellent question.
Backstory: You need to know that I had some terse words over the holiday with my father-in-law, a lifelong staunch Republican, the kind of guy that would have voted for Nixon, Ford, Reagan, both the Bushes, and has lately begun to feel disenchanted with his party.
He was complaining about my MIL falling into the “donut”, had a 500 dollar prescription for one drug for one month alone that really bothered him (and wouldn’t you know it, a drug prescribed to a woman with two hip replacement surgeries and a subsequent hip fracture, one of the drugs that increase odds of having a hip fracture…). I told him he needed to get on the stick and tell his rep Pete Hoekstra to support Pelosi’s efforts to fix the donut hole.
He jumped down my throat and told me that Pelosi was obstructionist and that people in her own party were going to get rid of her.
There was no talking to him after that; he wouldn’t hear a word.
Now tell me how the hell I am going to explain to this man that Ford f*cked up with his pardon of Nixon, that his party absolutely must come around and see that their representatives are criminals and must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law?
This guy is just like 40-odd-plus percent of the people in the state of Michigan, the same state that voted for Ford as a representative. Hell, I’ll bet that Ford was this same guy’s rep. We are NOT going to be able to cut-and-stake anybody unless we persuade this same guy, sell him.
Or we are going to be b*tching in thirty years about some other dead sap who extended a pardon as the next best alternative.
Unfortunately, I was far to young and far too poor a historian to have a particularly deep understanding of what happened in ‘74.. I just remember my parents being upset that their great white hope of a leader, RMN, was being wrongfully persecuted, and thanking Ford for doing the courageous thing in pardoning them. I think they managed to blame the whole thing on Jane Fonda and the hippies, too, somehow. And the Manson family somehow got conflated into their arguments as well..
however, my personal feeling, Rayne, is that the context was very different in ‘74. Now, it seems to me, that the thugs are far less obvious and far more skillful than they were then. Heck, it’s now a whole profession on K street… and now we’re also battling deeply-felt ideologies of extremism and fundamentalism, which I don’t think we were in ‘74. In short, the stakes are that much higher now… if RMN was impeachment-material, it was because he, individually, was a thug. If b43 is impeachment material, it’s because of all those things, but also because of the rising threat to democracy and our country from a whole class within our leadership.. ideologues who really do believe that their gods or idols or whatever want them to embrace thuggery. It’s these people:– the crooks who justify their thuggery with pseudo-religious wingnuttism — who need to be consigned to irrevocable political oblivion.
Rayne @ 78
Well I think we need to learn some lessons about generalization. All the American people? All the Democrats? We need to appeal to all the Republican opposition?
Remember, Gore got more votes in 2000 than Bush. There were plenty of people who opposed Kissinger/Ford back in 1976 (I did, being 16 at the time, I’m not surprised nobody noticed).
So who do we fight? Broders. The same pious, serious Beltway men who tell us what to think: Ford died, so now we will rewrite history in a way that we Broders and Wills and Brooks and Hiatts find pleasing.
To hell with them. Anybody writing anything about the hundreds of thousands of East Timorese who were massacred? Not the serious Beltway boys.
We needed something like South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation committee. Not just reconciliation, but truth buying amnesty. The Nixonians were able to hide the truth.
ifthethunderdontgetya (86) — Yes. We need to appeal to ALL the American public.
Because we need a veto-proof position, we cannot sell it to Democrats alone.
Because we are talking about a potential Constitutional crisis ahead that threatens the very WE, the people.
Because we are doing this in the public eye, in plein air, sunshine, in full view of the rest of the world who has been wronged by our policies, and in view of those who believe they now have carte blanche to do as they will because of our example.
Because this is a democracy; a scant majority has already shown how it can tyrannize a minority, and how strong backlash can be.
This is NOT a generalization. We may not win the hearts and minds of the entire public; I suspect the 18% who still approve of that criminal Cheney will still approve of that dreck no matter what. But at 18% approval for Cheney, we still have a supermajority that could resound decades from now, through history.
Jacqrat … teasing you back!
Hope you are well!
Just imagine how different this country might be tonight, if all politicians had told the truth, and nothing but the truth for the last six years.
Rayne @ 88
Exactly, for any given election, we only need just enough voters to have the math work out for us.. but we only get to stomp in Cheney in a generation if we have some evidence other than our short historical memories to prove that he IS a criminal…. an impeachment, a conviction or dirty documents that occasionally still surface (are “discovered”) 100 years from now. That’s the only way to make that 18% stick. Otherwise, I guarantee that my entire entire extended family, all of whom are moderate reguglicans and all of whom are now reasonably disgusted with Bushco, will be singing his praises for having saved us from the Saracan Hordes, in 20 years.
Jim H — yes, absolutely.
Some of the research that went into the Truth and Reconciliation process was based upon Don Beck’s and Chris Cowan’s work on “Spiral Dynamics”.
It is because of their work that I emphasize that we must persuade a substantive portion of the opposition as we go forward. Transpersonal psychologist Ken Wilber would say that we must drag them with us.
Why? Because WE will not emerge and grow as a people unless we do so; they have to come with us, even if they lag behind us, or we are doomed to regress.
We start with a post mortem, and then build an effective plan, which could very well include going after Broders, Brooks, et al.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 91- They’re paid handsomely not to do that.
Rayne @ 88
What is this veto proof position you are talking of?
ifthethunderdontgetya –
veto-proof = supermajority
Imagine President Pelosi saddled with a Congress that bucked her all the way in retaliation for resignations that were perceived as forced by a 50% majority.
It would be a living nightmare.
Rayne @ 95
Let me describe my Christmas, with the (1) family wingnut: they’re all the same, Pelosi gets money from the same PACs the Republicans do.
A super majority sounds great, but I don’t see how we get to it. Let alone how letting yet another hagriography/rewriting of history gets us there. Triangulation got us into this mess, and that with less than a majority of the voting public supporting it.
How about we try something different, like the truth?
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Tim Russert represents truth.
that’s big Dick Cheney? oh my freakin’ god!!!!
Rayne…
“Broder, Brooks, et al.” Gawd I can’t stand these guys.
ifthethunderdontgetya (96) –
I don’t believe I have suggested triangulation.
You said, “How about we try something different, like the truth?”
How’s that work, exactly? How’s that differ from 1974?
Remember, we had a real Fourth Estate that actually took its responsibilities to the public seriously in 1974, a la WaPo. We don’t have that now.
So?
Democrats need to get on board the ‘truth train’.
Rayne @ 100
So we replace it. Remember, we won in 2006, in spite of all the gerrymandering, and the money, and the Broderized press.
I really don’t understand what you’re suggesting, in specific.
New thread from Scarecrow.
ifthethunderdontgetya (102) –
That win in 2006 didn’t just happen because a majority woke up and saw the truth.
It took months of strategizing, planning, fundraising, canvassing, statistical analysis, polling, voter ID’ing, and GOTV to make it happen. It wasn’t simply an accident of the truth slapping up against the public.
WE, the people, got off our tuches and did something constructive that is not much contested by the opposition.
In 1974, Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon, and the American public was outraged, and then did what?
Obviously, years later, one heckuva lot of people are still furious at Ford…but I missed what the same people did in response to the pardon in 1974. I was 13 years old at the time, a geeky child that read everything from newspapers to magazines to books, watched the evening news, and I just don’t recall any organized response to the pardon, to change the outcome.
And now, in 2007-2008, after investigations and trials, certain public officials are found to have acted criminally. The President pardons them, and then the American public was outraged, and then did what?
There is no answer to the question – yet. That’s my point. We need to fill in that blank or I am simply going to check out of the political process in 30 years when the same people who did nothing get on their b*tchfest about the elderly pardoners.
Sooo…how ’bout we pull out of Iraq RIGHT NOW? Oh, sorry, I’m on the wrong blog.
Rayne @ 104, I know what you mean about what happened in 2006. We’re both from Ohio, right? I bet we voted for the same people, and donated to same. In fact, I’m pretty sure about that second part, didn’t I see you here at 2pm on a number of Saturdays?
But going back to the issue we are talking about: did those people know what happened in East Timor, and who was responsible?
It’s only decades later, that we know. And we won’t know anything like this ever again, if it’s left to the shrub’ites. I don’t see any common ground with those who still support bush/cheney, and I don’t see any use in our (as in you and me) reaching out to them. That gesture would not be returned, and how many times do you need to see proof of same?
It’s been so quiet, no news on the box turtle front, figured the box turtle’d gone to help out with that escalation effort.
Oh, oops, in Republican-ese I’m supposed to say, “surge” and not escalation.
Perhaps the box turtle’s taking a break here from packing gear to deploy for the “surge”.
ifthethunderdontgetya (106) — I was specifically addressing the matter of the Nixon pardon and not East Timor. There was action not taken in response to the pardon — what should we have done differently, and how will we do it in the future?
The East Timor problem is a lot like the problems of Rwanda and Srebrenica; we have a lot of methods for investigation and publication we haven’t had before, wherein the citizens can investigate and publish findings, discuss in detail the causes and preventative measures that should have been taken.
But it takes a concerted effort to do this; just sticking a pitchfork in one or two dead corpses will not prevent East Timor, Rwanda, Srebrenica, and now Iraq and Darfur from happening again.
And what exactly are we doing about Darfur?
Rayne @ 108
Selling history is no different than selling habeas corpus.
We’ve got to draw our line in the sand somewhere, and we’re winning drawing it at truth/lies.
So let’s keep winning.
Kudos, Jane, for the title. “I’ve Seen That Movie, Too” is one of the greatest songs Elton John ever wrote. It doesn’t get the attention and the accolades it deserves. And the chorus fits Bush so well:
“…So keep your auditions for somebody who hasn’t got so much to lose, ’cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting, that I’ve Seen That Movie Too.”
They should have impeached Ford for giving Nixon a pardon.
Nice combover there, Dick!
I’m a republican but feel the republicans are just a bunch of crooks. What really is frightening is how many of you here think that the Democrats will be any better. Let’s face it. They are all crooks. Hillary Clinton will give some dum speech about how the rich are getting tax breaks and that we need equality for all people, blah blah blah, etc,etc,etc. Nothing will change. She and her cronies will make billions while you liberals will hold hands and sing “we are the world” and see who can be the biggest sycophant to the minorities.Then you will insult the Republicans (which they deserve) and try to do some great thing for the country like pushing for gay marriage or some other useless rediculous fight. Feelgoodism is really all you are about. Meaningful change means nothing.
Brad, I’m of the opinion that (old saw) if voting could change anything, it would be illegal. That having been said, I would sure as shit rather have Hillary at the helm than W. Than DeLay. Than Lieberman. Than Romney. Than a whole bunch of folks. No, she’s not what I want – but as the saying goes, The Clenis was one of the best Republican prezwits this country has ever had. He sure as shit was not one of my favorites – but my faves are NEVER gonna get elected. Just too far from $$$$$ are my candidates of choice. I still would prefer so, so many to Hillary. But…if it gets down to Hillary or the predictable Repub, I’m voting for her. Reluctantly, regretfully. But, it’s the lesser of two weevils, is all.
and, what the hell, Brad, they’re ALL crooks, they;’re ALL liars, opportunists, crooks.
We have permitted them to be. A lot of this shit is our fault for being complacent, too “busy” and uninterested.
We really do get the gov’t we deserve.
and, please, give me the stake. I have the hammer.
This looks like a still from a Bob Newhart show! Take me back!
But seriously, how can we drive that stake in with the complicit media standing in the way always blocking us? I’m serious, what can we do?
I live in a very conservative part of SC, if you can imagine variations of red in SC (yes we actually have some purple and blue, believe it or not). I have been blogging against the war for over 2 years now and actively campaigned for Howard Dean in 2004. I have zero support here in my own community. People are STILL afraid to say anything, even now!
What can a little peon like myself, who has already tried & failed, tried & failed, etc. do? I’m emotionally exhausted from it all. I really don’t know if I can go on with this all alone.
I realize the msm plays a crucial role in suppression of the opposition and, yes, even now it’s doing the administration’s bidding, although not quite as zealously as in times past. It helped knock Howard Dean out of the race. Helped? Rather, it was instrumental in eliminating him. I do take comfort in the fact he is heading up the DLC and that he has done such a fantastic job.
I just wish I could get back the hopeful momentum I had during those heady times when I actually believed he would win. What a sap I was. Yes, that’s how I feel. Thoroughly defeated.
I apologize for whining but I guess I’m hoping someone in cyberspace will thrown me a life raft called “Hope.”
Wow, like I need a nostalgic look back at the 70’s. Ford provided political cover for the trasformation of the federal government from representing the good and welfare of the citizens to the good and welfare of the well-connected. Through the covert machinations of the never-could-be-elected-himself George H W Bush. Gerry Ford was best described by the sour LBJ who referred to him as a man who played football too often without a helmet and his cabinet was a treasonous cabal all of whom have a hand in the ruinous George W Bush presidency. Spare me the sepia-toned reverie.
If Dubya is allowed to go scott free then the only way to properly retaliate against the Republicans would be tit-for-tat-ish and that’s not good.
It reminds me of the way the characters played by Gene Hackman and Will Smith retaliated against the evil Congressman in Enemy of the State. They used the bad guy’s own snooping devices against him to reveal his despicable nature to the world.
It was funny in the movie, but it would be horrendous if one political party were to have to resort to that in the real world.
“… the same zombies will re-emerge and commit the same crimes again and again, or their heirs will, thinking there is no price to be paid.”
Change ‘thinking’ to ‘knowing’ and you’ve got it. There are way too many wise old men willing to carry the scorpion across the river just one more time. A pox upon them and the evil they unleash on us.
please, gather people of age that recall the time of ford.
ford was our first 20th Century puppet. he was told what to do by a lot of players we know are war criminals by their admitted actions, and that is his legacy, crime
ford has no respect among any of us that are old enough to have been there. It is as though we have lost our collective memory about this jerk, and gloss over his lack of achievements.
we have the criminal conspiracy that is our government because we did not prosecute nixon and make the personas that work for us, answer to us.
that was the end of america as we know it. what we have now isn’t worth saving, for it is totally and institutionally corrupt.
thanks jerry, you pathetic simpleton, or crafty criminal facilitator
either way, you have no respect among those of us that remember you, and you will be reviled by democracies on this planet as long as they exist.
where do I spit?
Ford pardoned Nixon, but committed an unpardonable act himself:
In 1997 the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) released a document that revealed that Ford had altered the first draft of the report to read: “A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine.”
Ford had elevated the location of the wound from its true location in the back to the neck to support the single bullet theory.
The original first draft of the Warren Commission Report stated that a bullet had entered Kennedy’s “back at a point slightly above the shoulder and to the right of the spine.
So much for history. But he seemed like such a nice guy…