# Gerald Ford: Threat or Menace? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 6, 2009, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516 "2009-08-06T09:45:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/21 "2009-08-06T17:39:01Z")
[QUOTE=BlinkingDuck] Yea…but that’s not a fair comparison. A dollar could go farther in those days. [/QUOTE] 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/22 "2009-08-06T18:12:59Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > …Ford screwed it up and did what politicians usually do - place themselves above the law. Not technically: > [@Art II](#): > > …and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States… ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/23 "2009-08-06T18:18:08Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Not technically: I know his pardon was _constitutional_. My point was that he mishandled the situation by allowing Nixon to escape prosecution for attempting to rig an election. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/24 "2009-08-06T18:20:20Z")
I do wish McGovern had offered the spot to Cronkite instead of Eagleton. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/25 "2009-08-06T18:21:31Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > I do wish McGovern had offered the spot to Cronkite instead of Eagleton. Eagleton ended up being perhaps the worst VP choice ever, but what the hell would have been accomplished by offering the job to someone who never would have taken it? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/26 "2009-08-06T18:22:23Z")
No need to apologize. The pardon clause is indeed a way the chief executive to put someone “above the law”, by nullifying the judicial process in its entirety. It’s a relic of monarchical privilege that has no place in a republican system of government. But yes, it’s there. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/27 "2009-08-06T18:23:59Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Eagleton ended up being perhaps the worst VP choice ever He’d have been worse if he hadn’t had therapy. 😉 Like most other VP choices. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/28 "2009-08-06T18:29:43Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Eagleton ended up being perhaps the worst VP choice ever, but what the hell would have been accomplished by offering the job to someone who never would have taken it? Cronkite said, when they told him about it years later, that he would have gladly done it, because he wanted to end the war so badly. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/29 "2009-08-06T18:38:25Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Well, he did issue a warning that’s quite relevant today: > > “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.” “But so are six guys with a truck.” ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/30 "2009-08-06T18:44:36Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > His thinking in pardoning Nixon was that a criminal trial of a former president would have torn the country apart to an unacceptable degree. I always laugh when I hear this lame excuse. Can’t think! Can’t sleep! Can’t get anything done at work! All I do is think about the Nixon trial! What hermetic beltway thinking. Nixon’s trial would have been troubling only to him and his family. Life goes on. The great complaint from the American public during the Watergate hearings was that they were preempting the daily soaps. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/31 "2009-08-06T18:51:29Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > He was our most athletic President as well. Pictures of him in his prime are pretty impressive [Ford in 1940](http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/avproj/hseries/h37-4b.gif). ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/32 "2009-08-06T18:57:02Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > His thinking in pardoning Nixon was that a criminal trial of a former president would have torn the country apart to an unacceptable degree. About which he was mistaken. Ideally, he should have pardoned RMN the day after he (RMN) reported for any incarceration he had been sentenced to. I can’t possibly accept as valid any so-called “rehabilitation” that Nixon enjoyed, simply because this necessary nod to justice, however symbolic, was not deemed important enough to insist upon. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/33 "2009-08-06T19:03:32Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > He was our most athletic President as well. Pictures of him in his prime are pretty impressive, and he was a standout football player for Michigan. He also was a good boxer, basketball player, and skier, and his golf game was impressive later in his life. I once read he was the only president to have been a male model. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/34 "2009-08-06T19:07:02Z")
Unless you count Reagan’s Chesterfield Cigarettes advertisements. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/35 "2009-08-06T19:11:45Z")
Nah, that’s just movie-star endorsement. I think the writer meant maybe the more conventional catalogue-model variety. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/36 "2009-08-06T20:33:30Z")
letting Nixon go did a lot for the imperial presidency mode. he was allowed to free and was above the reaches of law and the courts. It was a bad precedent. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/37 "2009-08-06T21:00:04Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > Pardoning Nixon was not that big a deal to me. I would have preferred he be prosecuted, but realistically, what good would it have done? The resignation provides all the deterrence required for the crime. It would have reaffirmed the principle that nobody is above the law. We seem to have reached a point where almost everyone in Washington gets vapors at the idea of investigating the Bushies to see if they indeed committed the crimes they appear to have committed, and prosecuting them where the seriousness of the crimes and the strength of the evidence demands it. Either there’s one standard that applies to petty thieves and high officials alike, or there’s one law for the privileged, and another for everyone else. If the worst that happens to high government officials for committing crimes is that they lose their office, but never see a day in jail, there’s considerably less reason for them to lose sleep over what might happen to them if they’re caught. And if we don’t even bother to investigate them, they don’t even have to worry about getting caught. ---
**Author:** ![qazwart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/5fc32e/32.png) [@qazwart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qazwart)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/38 "2009-08-06T21:42:01Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Well, he did issue a warning that’s quite relevant today: > > “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.” Don’t forget the WIN Buttons! He did those too. ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/39 "2009-08-06T21:42:27Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > It was a bad precedent. For a bad president! Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516/40 "2009-08-06T21:45:22Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > There was and is quite a bit of speculation that the pardon was a reward to Nixon for allowing him to become President. But for what reason would Ford have given into this? Nixon was toast anyways and he was in no position to negotiate/bribe/coerce anything. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gerald-ford-threat-or-menace/505516.md?page=3)