The problem with a lot of British journalists who report from the US is that their analysis is inevitably hampered by their historical ignorance. In such circumstances conventional wisdom becomes a convenient refuge. It is easily available, and it can always be defended through references to years of accumulated nonsense. So here we have Rupert Cornwell of the Independent warning that ‘America doesn’t need a witch-hunt‘. To support his view he recycles one of Washington’s most discredited myths.
A month after taking office in August 1974, President Gerald Ford issued a full pardon to his predecessor Richard Nixon for his crimes in the Watergate affair. The public fury that followed probably cost him the 1976 election. Today, however, few historians doubt that Ford was right to spare the country further instalments of what he called “an American tragedy”.
This is bullshit perpetuated by Washington pundits. The pardon set a precedent for future abuses, and promoted the culture of impunity of which the present scandal is merely a symptom. The consequences of the pardon, as Keith Olbermann points out below, are very much to blame for the new ‘American tragedy’ (It is never a tragedy for those on the receiving end of course).
P U L S E 
The issue of pardons and forgiveness are scarcely relevant when one considers how US elections amount to nothing more than elite revolving door re-shuffles.
Elite groups like the CFR One World synarchy have always held all key positions in the US administration.Under Nixon,CFR members inundated the highest levels of government and they were accustomed to directing the course of all the Presidential policy.
Nixon’s views differed greatly from those of Kissinger,but both men were creatures of Rockefeller and it was he who wanted control of US foreign policy and Kissinger was his means of having it.
Within days of achieving office in 1968 Nixon volte-faced on economic policy and declared allegiance to Keynesian economics.
However as the US military position on the ground deteriorated in Vietnam around 1972,Nixon’s “mad-dog” policy of intensive bombing of Hanoi escalated-Kissinger’s management of the President increasingly came into question.
At this point the third-rate burglary we know as “Watergate” became the means by which the ouster of a President who was no longer willing to do the bidding of his CFR sponsors was effected.
Key players included Alexander Haig and Bob Woodward,a former Naval lieutenant and briefing officer,who had prior contact when Haig was based at the White House National Security Office.Woodward is now a leading contributor to CFR in-house journal:Foreign Affairs.
Ford’s apology for Nixon’s “misconduct” (slipping off the lead might be a more accurate description of Nixon’s latter days in office) is today better remembered than who he appointed as his Vice President.
Any offers?
It was some dude called Nelson Rockefeller-who many CFR insiders had expected Nixon to appointe his VP in the first place!
Had two now conveniently forgotten 1975 assassination attempts against Ford succeeded then Rockefeller would have become President.
Had that occurred-American tragedies,prosecutions and witch-hunts there might have been in profusion.Pardons and forgiveness would have come a little too late and the stench left by the previous administrations would have been intensified with the advent of the long-awaited New World Order.