"The president of the United States, under these circumstances, dealing with these kinds of issues, can’t make decisions based on public opinion polls; he shouldn’t…"
"I had the experience, for example, of working for Jerry Ford, and I’ve never forgotten the travails he went through after he had been president for 30 days when he issued the pardon of former president Nixon. And there was consternation coast to coast."
"The president had to go up – chose to go up before the Judiciary Committee of the House and testify in order to put down the rumors that somehow there had been a deal between he and President Nixon, that if he would pardon Nixon, then he would get to be president himself. I rode up there with him that day and sat in the hearing room while he answered all those questions. I know how much grief he took for that decision, and it may well have cost him the presidency in ’76."
"Thirty years later, nearly everybody would say it is exactly the right thing to do, that if he’d paid attention at the time to the polls he never would have done that. But he demonstrated, I think, great courage and great foresight, and the country was better off for what Jerry Ford did that day. And 30 years later, everybody recognized it."
"And I have the same strong conviction the issues we’re dealing with today – the global war on terror, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq – that all of the tough calls the president has had to make, that 30 years from now it will be clear that he made the right decisions, and that the effort we mounted was the right one, and that if we had listened to the polls, we would have gotten it wrong."
Reading it this morning, my jaw dropped. What could Cheney be talking about? Since Nixon’s pardon, the "dirty trick" mentality of Nixon has become the mainstay of the Republican Party – part of every campaign since then – including this one. The Nixon era "tricksters" from the late sixties Young Republicans have kept the flame of nasty politics burning brightly. Had Nixon been indicted, it would have sent a message that might have kept this from happening, or at least, slowed it down. I suppose Cheney would say the same thing about Scooter Libby’s sentence being commuted. And I expect he’s unconsciously planning for his own future pardon.
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