Watergate

 How strange to allow a President "the authority to pardon."

Most Hamilton-ish ideas involve a "checks and balances" approach: if the President uses a veto, the legislative branch can override the veto, and if the President challenges an existing law, the Supreme Court can decide that the challenge is without merit. But no one looks over the President's shoulder as he issues a pardon. Like a King, he can just wave his wand and delete the past.

The theory was that the President could use the pardon to display selflessness and magnanimity; in shielding decent people from some of the harshness of "the law," the President would inspire normal Americans to consider acts of mercy. But that's not really how the pardon has worked. Often, the pardon has had a political and self-serving function. For example, when Harding pardoned Eugene Debs, the gesture was not about deep feelings for Debs's plight. Harding didn't want Debs to become a martyr by dying in jail.

I feel some disdain toward Joe Biden, and one reason for my disdain is Biden's use of the pardon to protect his son. Although I always vote for Democratic candidates, it irritates me when Democrats imagine that they are inherently, obviously, transparently nobler than Republicans. It's not hard for me to do a thought experiment in which I'm feeling disaffected and powerless, and I look at the two-party system, and I notice the following: "Trump lies to the American public; also, Joe Biden lied to the American public."

In any case, the pardon exists, and it's forever linked with a particular name. That name is Gerald Ford. When Nixon came to understand that his cause was a sinking ship, he considered pardoning himself, but he feared that this would lead to some kind of uprising. The pardon had to come from Ford. And Ford had already gone on the record by saying, "The American people wouldn't stand for my pardoning Nixon." Oh, well. A month of careful manipulation helped Ford to change his mind.

For a long while, Ford's pardon was viewed as valorous; Ford even became a recipient of a JFK "Courage" award. But, now, Jeffrey Toobin is questioning history. Was Ford courageous? Or did he make an obviously wrong move--a move that helped to ensure that later Presidents could continue to break the law without worry? I'd never think to tell this story, but I don't have Jeffrey Toobin's mind. As always, Toobin's command of the facts is impressive; he writes with total authority, and he never struggles to make a connection, to keep a sense of clarity, to move "furniture" briskly off of, and back onto, the storytelling stage.

"The Pardon" is a terrific book.