[October 4th marks the 200th birthday of Rutherford B. Hayes, a good-looking young man who went on to be a very bad-governing president. So this week I’ll contextualize Hayes and four other under-remembered bad (in the least good sense) chief executives, leading up to a weekend post on the worst we’ve ever had.]
I’m gonna
keep this one pretty short and to the point. Gerald Ford was a big lovable
dude, a former
football star whose biggest problem seems to have been keeping
his balance. In many ways, he was a perfect figure to return post-Watergate
America to a place of greater normalcy and calm. But there’s the rub—one of
the ways he decided to do so was by issuing
a full presidential pardon for his predecessor, Richard Nixon, insulating
Nixon from prosecution for his very real and very
troubling crimes. Whatever we think of the case for that particular action
(and I’m not a fan), there’s no doubt that is established some frustrating
precedents that continue to inform our own moment—if one past former president
had been rightly
investigated for and charged with his crimes, that is, certain current
former presidents (on whom more this weekend) and their supporters would have a
far more difficult time arguing that such steps are unprecedented and out of
bounds. For that and that alone, Gerald Ford deserves a spot on this list of
under-remembered bad presidents.
Trump-tastic
post this weekend,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Other baddies you’d highlight?
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