Why did the US government fly the US flags at half mast when Richard Nixon died? He certainly was no hero, just a crook.
Richard Nixon besmirched the office of the President through blantant criminal felony acts involving himself and high gov’t officials including the Attorney General, the highest law-enforment official in the country.
He even cheated jail by appointing Ford his replacment. Ford then pardoned Nixon in return for the appointment. NOTE: Ford did not grant Nixon amnesty for crimes he “may” have commited… Ford PARDONED Nixon for crimes he was guilty of. Even Nixon’s handpicked lapdog thought he was quilty.
This is why Nixon didn’t go to jail with the rest of his white house cabinent.
Afterwards, in an interview with David Frost, He publically admitied his quilt by brazenly complaining because he got caught.
When he died, I assumed congress would tactfully ignore the whole affair and let the disgraced public leader fade away. Instead, they actually honored the criminal by flying flags at half mast.
They even have a robot Nixon at Disneyland in the Hall of Presidents. If Walt Disney was still alive, he’d have had enough sense to omit “Tricky Dicky” from the lineup.
All US Presidents are honored with the half-mast treatment when they die, not just the ones we really, really like. And history’s definitive judgment of him might actually be kinder than yours or mine.
As guilty as Nixon seemed, he was never convicted, nor even fully impeached (as Clinton or A. Johnson). I am sure President Clinton will be given these honors as well when he dies, despite being impeached.
If a President were to be impeached and convicted, whould he recieve that treatment?
I believe it takes a special act by Congress to lower the Flags. It’s not an automatic thing. It has to be decided upon by someone. The only way that they could fly the flags at half mast for Nixon was if someone made a decision to give permision to do so.
Someone had to say "Lets honor that Crook!!!
Our tax dollars paid for this process, as well as paying someone to implement it.
Perhaps. But we was not convicted of a crime, and current flag statutes specify that the flag is to be flown at half-staff for 30 days when a President dies.
Nobody “appointed” Ford as Nixon’s replacement. Ford was elected as Vice President and assumed the position of President when Nixon resigned as was his Constitutional duty. The President does not have the power to fire the VP and he can only appoint a new one in the case of the death or resignation of the elected one, and then only with the consent of the Senate.
Actually, it was President Clinton who ordered flags flown at half-staff when Nixon died. Of course, executive orders only apply to those people who report to the executive branch of the government. Nobody made you fly your flag at half-staff.
I don’t see why. The guy was a President, whether you like it or not. The fact that he was corrupt is beside the point. Lots of Presidents have done not-very-nice things. That doesn’t excuse it, but I don’t think Nixon’s transgressions were particularly heinous considering the history of that office.
Well, this is where you’re wrong. Flag-flying is at the discretion of the current President. Congress does create statutes for flag standards and etiquette to be followed by government offices, however.
Well, that would be Mr. Clinton. Take it up with him.
I seriously doubt it was that expensive. The flags were already there. Personally, I think there are far more agregious issues to consider if you’re worrying about high taxes.
So Congress must approve a half-mast flying? Would you support this if a Congress was in majority that opposed NASA funding?
Would Congress need to approve a half-mast after 9-11?
It’s obvious you’re (theOP) a left-wing extremist who just doesn’t understand that Nixon faced impeachment, then resigned for the good of the country because he was guilty, while defending Clinton for fighting the rule of law.
Even a jaded “professor” from Berkley can explain the law.
Nixon’s VP, Spiro Agnew, was forced to resign for blatant income tax evasion.
Nixon was also quilty of this, but the new vice president, (which Nixon DID appoint after Spiro left) , pardoned him for tax evasion after Nixon resigned.
I guess one hand washes the other.
A friend of mine in the IRS said that of all the crimes the Nixon administration commited, the very worst was income tax evasion. Such a terrible example to set for the tax paying public. If everyone followed the ex-president’s and Vice presidents example, then there would be no tax revenue to run the government.
Public Law 105-225, § 2(a) (codified at 4 U.S.C. § 7(m)), codified the practice of flying flags at half-mast when a former President or former Vice President dies:
The current statute is based on a proclamation by President Eisenhower codifying the custom of flying the flag at half-staff in certain cases:
Proc. No. 3044, Mar. 1, 1954, 19 F.R. 1235, as amended by Proc. No. 3948, Dec. 12, 1969, 34 F.R. 19699.
The incumbent President can modify the statutorily codified rules and customs by proclamation, 4 U.S.C. § 10, but the then-incumbent President Clinton did not do so when former President Nixon died.
reiayanami, you are correct that a pardon legally implies guilt. But the speculation that President Nixon named then-House Minority Leader Ford as Vice President in exchange for the pardon has never been more than speculation. There were certainly valid public-policy considerations that weighed against prolonging the constitutional crisis by putting the former President through a public trial, humiliation, and perhaps jail. Former President Ford himself denies any quid pro quo and, while that statement is self-serving and proves nothing by itself, most historians have accepted Ford’s account at face value. Ford received the Profiles in Courage award from the Kennedy family for pardoning Nixon, and journalist Bob Woodward, who won a Pulitzer prize for breaking the Watergate cover-up story, contributed an essay to Profiles in Courage for Our Time that applauded Ford’s decision. The Kennedys and Woodward were never exactly Nixon or Ford apologists.
Filling a vacancy in the Vice Presidency is not an appointment, technically, and it requires action by both congressional chambers, not only the Senate. Under the Appointments Clause, the President
U.S. Const., art. I, § 2. But appointment is a presidential prerogative: once the Senate advises and consents to a nomination, the President may withhold the appointment, or may appoint and commission but later dismiss the appointed officer. The seminal case on judicial review, Marbury v. Madison, involved a commission withheld by President Jefferson’s secretary of state from a judicial officer to whose nomination by President Adams the Senate had advised and consented.
But filling a vacancy in the Vice Presidency is a different constitutional process:
U.S. Const., amend. XXV, § 2. When both houses have acted on the nomination, the nominee takes office without further presidential action, and the President can neither deny office to nor remove the new Vice President.
Oh, please. How much does it cost to have people only raise the flags half way up the pole than all the way up the pole? It actually saves money, since the guy whose job it is to raise the flags each morning has a few seconds’ less work to do.
FTR, I was a bellman at the Holiday Inn at the time, and my job was to raise the flags each morning. I dutifully raised them to half-staff, over my boss’s objections, every morning for the whole 30-day period.
