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Gerald Ford

Attenuation

January 27, 2021 by Jim Leave a Comment

From The Ford Library Museum Website

The season of our discontent is set to begin February 08, 2021. Soon we will be forced to talk to our spouses again and eat an actual meal instead of gobble chicken wings during commercials or at half-times. I can feel the ennui closing in. ♫ It is a long, long time from February to September ♫ when football season returns. It is not that I have no interest in other sports, but other than the Olympic downhill ski race and the baseball World Series I just do not want to watch them on television. On the other hand, I will gladly spend four hours watching Goadie Bowl Tech and Reyfert Hogart Junior College drop passes and fumble kick-offs. Such pursuits as yard work and household chores quickly fade in the afterglow of a football game. Ah well, perhaps it will give me an opportunity to ask Peg what she has been doing since September 2020. Also, I might give some thought to such things as our battle with ’Ole 19 and our political malaise.

Perhaps I can combine my concerns about the end of the football season, the Corona Virus and such political madness as the January 06, 2021 assault on our Capitol including its impending impeachment imbroglio. After all, President Gerald Ford was the hero or villain, choose one, of the President Richard Nixon impeachment controversy and President Lyndon Johnson often alleged Ford’s decisions were affected by Ford’s having played too much football without a helmet. Gerald Ford played center on the University of Michigan football team. Ford graduated from college in 1935, an era when leather helmets were in vogue. For safety reasons leather has been gradually replaced with the rock-hard plastic we now use. Hello, spearing or targeting penalties and TIB’s (traumatic brain injuries). However, from an esthetic viewpoint, the hard plastic provides a better surface for team logos and sticker awards for hard hits.

Football and politics do have some similarities, and when it comes to dealing with misdeeds in either, the legal concept of attenuation is relevant. With football a hard hit with his helmet by one player against the head of another player can be analyzed by re-tracing backwards from the hit. While not even the player himself, or now perhaps herself too, may know for sure if he intended permanent harm, the referees and the re-play booth can carefully review and discuss the event. This may disclose guilt or innocence of the player but is he the only one to blame?

The fanatics who cheer on teams often call for the players to “fight’ or even “kill ’em”. One’s teammates may urge super aggression. Coaches spend months in conditioning drills and two-a-days pre-season practices explaining how starters push the limits while bench setters are more timid. And what about the player’s parents? Who is responsible for engendering mayhem instead of mercy?

The same type of analysis is an element of our criminal justice system. When there is a lynching, how far back the causal chain should punishment go? Is it just the one person who slips the noose over the victim’s neck? What about the on-lookers, the news media that fanned the flames, the leaders who gave rousing speeches, the sworn law officers who did not intervene and the rest of the community who acquiesced in silence either during or after the lynching? Perhaps an entire country might be responsible or even a silently accepting world. How do we decide whether we are applying appropriate punishment or simply burning a few witches to shoulder the blame for everyone?

Then, of course, we need to look at the dynamics of the attenuation itself. Who is making the choices about whom to burn? Are the decisions just or are they just decisions because the ones who execute them have the power to do so? And most importantly, are we a better society because of the choices or are we simply fomenting more targeting? Finally, where and how does it end?

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Filed Under: America, COVID-19, Democracy, Gavel Gamut, Impeachment, Judicial, Presidential Campaign Tagged With: assault on the Capitol January 06 2021, attenuation, Covid Virus, criminal justice system, football and politics, Gerald Ford, impeachment, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, lynching, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, the season of our discontent

Briefly Speaking

January 23, 2021 by Jim Leave a Comment

I.

The Salient Issue 

One method of grappling with what are the most vital issues America must resolve is to first eliminate those issues that blur our thought process. Five years of partisan ill will have sapped our nation’s psyche. Our health and our economy have suffered as we have found it more entertaining to castigate those who disagree with our political views than to make the hard choices required to battle COVID-19 and its devastation of our society. The events of January 06, 2021 and our reactions to them will either continue us on our downward spiral, or perhaps, America can remember and apply the healing lessons from our history.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Gerald Ford (1918-2006) would address the January 06, 2021 attack on our Capitol Building differently. Kant, the great German legal philosopher, would hold it immoral to not require retribution against President Trump for the death and destruction that occurred after Trump’s call for a march on Congress even though President Trump had only fourteen days left to serve when the riot took place. Kant’s position on the legal duty to punish is set forth in the following example. If we envision an island society that decided to dissolve itself completely and leave the island at a time prisoners sentenced to be executed were awaiting their fate, it would be immoral to leave the island without first carrying out the executions. Kant’s rationale for this seemingly needless act was that the blood guilt of the prisoners would attach to the general society if justice was not administered. An eye for an eye would be called for according to Kant.

In contrast, President Ford invoked the wisdom and healing of Jesus when Ford issued a pardon to disgraced ex-President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) for Nixon’s role in covering up the burglary of Democratic National Committee Headquarters. Ford issued the pardon in September only one month after Nixon resigned in August 1974 to avoid impeachment. Instead of retribution, Ford chose mercy, but not just for Nixon; America needed relief too.

Of course, neither revenge nor mercy can, by definition, be perfect justice. However, when it comes to crimes against the State there are larger issues than justice for individuals. The greater good may require a more involved response. Fortunately, we have the wisdom of our Founders and the courage of such leaders as President Ford to aid us in our decision-making process. 

II.

Separation of Powers

Our Founders built our Constitution on the general theory of three equal branches of government. The events since the election on November 03, 2020 give evidence of the abiding legacy left for us in 1789. After the election the Judicial Branch rendered numerous decisions that upheld the Rule of Law. Vice President Pence in the Executive Branch has refused to use the 25th Amendment for political purposes, and the Legislative Branch has resisted attempts to usurp the will of the electorate to de-certify the Electoral College results. Our governmental framework has been stretched but has accommodated pressures from many angles.

All three branches are working together to identify and prosecute those individuals who violated our seat of government with physical destruction and death. With the cooperation of numerous law enforcement agencies and the courts, along with the laws previously enacted by our federal and state legislatures, those who brought nooses, pipe bombs and twist-ties to their pre-meditated crimes are being identified; and if probable cause to commit crimes is shown, and guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is proven using due process of law, just punishment should result. Gentle Reader, next week, if you are available, we can consider the differing treatments of individuals and the issue surrounding the legal concepts of attenuation of culpability. As to President or ex-President Trump, I respectfully submit that continuing to have our country divided about half and half concerning Donald Trump is akin to President Lincoln’s prescient declaration that a house divided against itself will not stand.

With that in mind I submit for your consideration a Gavel Gamut article I wrote right after President Ford died in which it was suggested Ford sacrificed his political career for his country in 1974. I have slightly modified the original article:

III.

Pardon Me, President Ford

(First published 08 January 2007)

President Gerald Ford died December 26, 2006. In a life filled with public service, he will always be best known for his pardon of President Nixon in 1974. President Nixon had personally chosen Gerald Ford to replace the disgraced Vice President Spiro Agnew who resigned in 1973 amid disclosures of bribery while Agnew was Governor of Maryland. Vice President Ford served under President Nixon until Nixon resigned in August of 1974. One month after Nixon resigned, President Ford issued him a full pardon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while president.

At the time, many Americans, including me, were calling for a complete investigation of the Watergate debacle and especially Nixon’s involvement in it. It was a time of a media feeding frenzy and blood in the water. President Ford took the unprecedented step of going personally before Congress and flatly stating that President Nixon and then Vice President Ford had no deal to pardon Nixon if Nixon would resign.

I recall how dubious I was when President Ford stated that he issued the pardon only to help our country to start healing from the loss of confidence caused by Watergate. Yet, after a few months I began to have second thoughts about my initial reaction to the pardon. I realized how much courage it took for President Ford to go straight into the anti-Nixon firestorm sweeping the United States. As a country, we were almost paralyzed by the partisan fighting at home and the War in Vietnam. [Insert 4 years of partisan bickering during the Trump presidency and include at least 1 year of COVID-19.] We needed a new direction and a renewed spirit in 1974 just as we do today. Surely President Ford with his twenty-two (22) years in Congress knew he was committing political suicide by not giving us our pound of flesh. Still, he put his country first. Of course, the country rewarded his sacrifice by booting him from office and electing President Jimmy Carter to replace him.

But during the campaign of 1976, when President Ford came to Evansville, Indiana on April the 23rd, I took our son, Jim, out of school and we went to the Downtown Walkway to see the man who put country above self. For while William Shakespeare almost always got his character analysis right, when it comes to President Ford, “The good he did lives after him.” Julius Caesar, Act III, sc. ii.

Even President Carter, one of America’s most courageous and best former presidents said of his erstwhile political opponent President Ford: “President Ford was one of the most admirable public servants I have ever known.” And when it came to the pardon of President Nixon, Senator Ted Kennedy, while admitting that he had severely criticized the pardon in 1974, said that he had later come to realize that:

“The pardon was an extraordinary act of courage that historians recognize was

truly in the national interest.”

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Filed Under: America, COVID-19, Democracy, Elections, Events, Gavel Gamut, Presidential Campaign Tagged With: 25th Amendment, a house divided against itself will not stand, briefly speaking, Capitol, COVID-19, decertify Electoral College results, Democratic National Committee Headquarters, Donald Trump, events of January 06 2021, Gentle Reader, Gerald Ford, Immanuel Kent, James M. Redwine, Jesus, Jim Redwine, Jimmy Carter, march on Congress, new direction and renewed spirit, partisan ill will, presidential pardon, Richard Nixon, rule of law, Spiro Agnew, Ted Kennedy, the good he did lives after him, Vietnam War, Watergate

High Crimes And Misdemeanors

December 7, 2019 by Jim Leave a Comment

Old Cadet Chapel, West Point

If you visit our country’s most hallowed military institution at West Point you will find America’s most infamous traitor, Benedict Arnold, is as reviled today as he was in 1780. Arnold had been one of General George Washington’s closest colleagues and was in command of Fort West Point when he plotted with British Major John André to surrender West Point to the British.

André was caught and hanged but Arnold escaped to England where he joined the British Army as a general and then engaged in battles against America. Such treachery is not easily forgiven. When you enter the venerable old Cadet Chapel at West Point you will find there is no mention of Arnold; his name has been removed from where others are displayed with honor.

Interior of Old Cadel Chapel

If even now America has not forgotten what treason truly is you can imagine how the Framers of our Constitution felt when they wrote our Constitution only seven years after Arnold’s betrayal. When Article II, section 4 of the Constitution was drafted treason was the first reason given for impeachment:

“The President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Article I, section 5 gives the House of Representatives the sole power of impeachment and Article I, section 3, subsection 6 gives the Senate the power to try the charge of impeachment with a conviction, and subsequent removal from office, requiring a two-thirds vote.

We have had forty-five Presidents of which three have been impeached: Andrew Johnson (1865-1869); Richard Nixon (1969-1974); William Clinton (1993-2001); and now perhaps, Donald Trump (2017-?). Andrew Johnson and William Clinton were not convicted. Richard Nixon resigned. And Donald Trump’s situation is yet to be determined.

I do not know the significance of why America went from George Washington (1789-1797) to 1973 with only one presidential impeachment then has had two, and perhaps three, since then. My speculation is the bar for impeachment has been lowered from the behavior of a Benedict Arnold to a standard based on personality. Have we transitioned from treason to Tricky Dicky, Slick Willy, and, perhaps, Dodgy Donnie? If so, the cautionary statements of then Representative Gerald Ford and the Founding Father and main architect of the Constitution James Madison may be worth considering. “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the Members of the House of Representatives says it is” (Ford); and we should be aware “Maladministration” [or its kin] is, “so vague a term [as] will be equivalent to a tenure during pleasure of the Senate.” (Madison).

A short-hand interpretation of these admonitions is that America should not allow itself to become a nation based on the fluctuating opinions of those in Congress but only upon a system of law as sought by those who crafted our Constitution.

 

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Filed Under: America, Democracy, Foreign Intervention, Gavel Gamut, Patriotism, Presidential Campaign Tagged With: America, Andrew Johnson, articles of impeachment, Benedict Arnold, British Army, Cadet Chapel, Dodgy Donnie, Donald Trump, George Washington, Gerald Ford, high crimes and misdemeanors, House of Representatives, James M. Redwine, James Madison, Jim Redwine, John Andre, maladministration, Richard Nixon, Senate, Slick Willy, treason, Tricky Dicky, United States, West Point, William Clinton

© 2020 James M. Redwine

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