Of all presidential perks, the pardon power has a special significance. It is just the kind of authority that would attract the special attention of someone obsessed with himself and his own ability to influence events.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I believe that President Clinton considered the legal merits of the arguments for the pardon as he understood them, and he rendered his judgment, wise or unwise, on the merits.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
At bottom, the decision to pardon Nixon was a political judgment properly within the bounds of Ford's constitutional authority. The specter of a former president in the criminal dock as our country moved into its bicentennial year was profoundly disturbing.
President Gerald R. Ford was never one for second-guessing, but for many years after leaving office in 1977, he carried in his wallet a scrap of a 1915 Supreme Court ruling. 'A pardon,' the excerpt said, 'carries an imputation of guilt,' and acceptance of a pardon is 'a confession of it.'
To show men that crimes can be pardoned, and that punishment is not their inevitable consequence, encourages the illusion of impunity and induces the belief that, since there are pardons, those sentences which are not pardoned are violent acts of force rather than the products of justice.
We are all serving a life sentence, and good behavior is our only hope for a pardon.
The President can pardon us again... and again and again, but... picketing will continue, and sooner or later, he will have to do something about it.
In many ways when Jerry Ford pardoned Nixon, in a certain way, he did speak for the country.
Mr. Ford's decision to pardon Richard M. Nixon for any crimes he might have been charged with because of Watergate is seen by many historians as the central event of his 896-day presidency.
We pardon to the extent that we love.