Looks like we have a well-placed hammer doing a number on obliterating the whole Ford memorial mythos nail. This is definitely a recommended read for our fellow citizens who are taking in too much of the history soma in the United States of Amnesia.

But is that what Ford really did? Let’s recall the context. The burglary and cover-up we call “Watergate” gave the American people a rare glimpse at raw government power. The break-in at the Democratic
National Committee was not the only criminal activity that Nixon administration operatives had committed. They had also broken into the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, who had leaked to the New York Times the Pentagon Papers, which disclosed former President Lyndon Johnson’s determination to fight the war in Vietnam even though his advisors knew it couldn’t be won. Nixon’s infamous “plumbers” unit had wiretapped people thought to be undermining the war effort. He also had used the IRS to harass people on his notorious enemies list.

For once Americans could see the truth about unrestrained government: its subservience to privileged interests, its disregard for freedom, its pettiness. The wizard’s curtain had been pulled aside momentarily, and the people were disgusted. Respect for government and the presidency plummeted. This terrified the bipartisan power elite. The broad revulsion threatened to undermine the tacit consensus that had supported the Democratic-Republican power structure for years. Who knows what might have happened if the public’s outrage had not been contained? Maybe a third party would have flourished. Power and lucre were at stake.

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Thus, what Ford accomplished was to stanch a growing public cynicism about government and to restore complacency. This is universally heralded as a good thing. Observe how nearly every political figure and establishment pundit thinks Ford’s pardon of Nixon was wise. But why is it good that we were “spared” a full accounting of Nixon’s offenses? Could it be that the American people might have learned too much and drawn more-general conclusions about the morality of this government than the power elite would have preferred?

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