Sunday, October 30, 2016

I remember when no American was above the law

Blogger during the Nixon
administration
It's my firm belief that if Hillary Clinton was not running for president she'd be under indictment for at the very least the reckless mishandling of classified documents that were stored on the home-brewed email servers she utilized while serving as Barack Obama's secretary of state. She may have also directed the deletion of emails--after they were subpoenaed by Congress.

But because Clinton is the Democratic nominee for president and the incumbent in the White House, Barack Obama, is an ends-always-justifies-the-means leftist who is desperate to preserve his liberal legacy, the Department of Justice, led by attorney general Loretta Lynch, hampered the FBI investigation of Clinton and her email server. For instance, no grand jury was impaneled, which makes issuing subpoenas very difficult.

But James Comey, the FBI director, reopened the investigation after emails pertinent to that investigation were found on laptop shared by longtime Clintonista Huma Abedin and her estranged husband, Anthony "Carlos Danger" Weiner.

So justice may still be served.

But when I was a child I learned, perhaps incorrectly, that no person, even a president, was above the law. After the "smoking gun" Watergate tape was released, it was clear that Richard M. Nixon obstructed justice. Impeachment and removal from office became a certainty--so Nixon resigned. Immediately after his swearing in, Gerald R. Ford, his successor, said, "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over." It was revived a bit after Ford pardoned Nixon a month later, but while "Tricky Dicky" was never prosecuted, his reputation was destroyed.

Unlike now, most national governments were dictatorships in 1974, so response from outside the United States was dominated by befuddlement. The Soviets never understood it. To them it was as if Nixon was toppled because he forgot to pay a parking ticket. I remember a Middle Eastern politician exclaiming, "He's gone? And there were no tanks outside of the White House?"

Yes, Nixon was gone--and there were no tanks. That's because America was a great nation in 1974--no man and no woman was above the law. My teachers told me so as did my parents.

I'm not so sure that is the case in 2016.

This I do know--it's time to Make America Great Again.



2 comments:

Holding My Nose said...

IIRC many Republicans in Congress turned on Nixon. How amny Democrats in Congress have turned on Clinton? That's a major difference between the two parties.

Marathon Pundit said...

Excellent point. And the ones on the House Judiciary Committee who stood by Nixon before "the smoking gun" tape was released were thrown out of office that fall.