Everyone blames Reagan for what's happened in the last...

[Aviation Pro]

...thirty years.

Nope, it's time to kick a dead man while he's buried, it's Jerry Ford who gave asswipes like Shitstain Shoots-Guy-In-Face and Herr GruppenMeisterSheissKopfFuehrer Rooomsfeld their starts. These are the scumbags who first thought of the Presidency as a unitary executive after the fall of Noxious in the wake of Watergate. And for those who want to connect some dots, Ford represented the area around Grand Rapids, MI, a stone's throw away from Amway headquarters in Ada whose founders, Rich Devos and Jay Van Andel, have pledged millions of dollars to right wing fundie groups, sired a son who would have turned Michigan into a fascist state, and whose family also includes in-law Erik Prince, founder of mercenary group Blackwater. Ford routinely shilled for this murderous set of families.

No, it's Ford we should despise.

[bluerum]

1. I take it back to at least Nixon.

[PDJane]

2. Yep.

That bunch were first in the Nixon administration. They've been recycled several times since.

[bdf]

3. I beg to disagree - it's Nixon we should despise, and those who enabled him

Nixon attempted to forge a "unitary presidency." The term "unitary presidency" may only have been invented later, but it was born when Nixon said "it's not a crime if the president does it." Nixon's administration was the incubator of the young Dick Cheney, who to this day admires Nixon and his abuse of power.

But that seed might have been prevented from germinating if only Nixon had been impeached. Those who let him resign taught the extremists that they can get away with the worst of abuses yet receive only a slap on the wrist. An impeachment might have taught a lesson they'd be a long time forgetting.

Ford, as you say, was guilty of pardoning Nixon. Ford is reputed to have said towards the end of the life that pardoning Nixon had consigned him to Hell. Ford proved that Republican presidents could abuse power, get away with a slap on the wrist, then have the slap on the wrist kissed better with a pardon.

I don't blame Reagan for much. I think his Alzheimer's had already started to kick in at the beginning of his presidency and that it was Reagan who was "out of the loop" and Poopy Bush who was really in control while claiming to be out of the loop. I know Reagan was a former actor, but that bit where he faces questioning and says his heart tells him he didn't do what he was accused of but his head tells him that the evidence means he must have indicates to me that he was framed by Poopy.

Anyway, whether it was Reagan behind all the crimes or it was really Poopy in control doesn't matter much. It was another Republican administration breaking laws and wiping their arses with the Constitution. And again they got away with it.

Which paved the way for Poopy Bush's own crimes, in which he lied the US into a war in Iraq (like father, like son) and then attempted to claim that he was once again out of the loop. More egregious crimes. And again they got away with it.

Which led to Bush-the-moron emulating his daddy. And he looks like getting away with it.

Each time we let them get away with it they take it to mean that next time they can go even further. And that's why we must impeach Dubya, Cheney and the rest. Because if we don't then the next Republican president will go further still (if Dick 'n' Dubya don't trump him by declaring martial law and suspending presidential elections for all time).

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. I think our current crop of elder neocons grew up at the knees of the robber barons. Maybe they

learned it all from grandpa or his dad?

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

5. You know something, on the night Nixon announced his

resignation, my father said something to me that has haunted me these years. He said "The Republicans will never get over the fact that the Democrats got the dirt on "Tricky Dick" and forced him to resign. Now my father was a Nixon hater from back when Nixon ran against Helen Douglas for the Senate in California.

Let's face it Nixon originated the so-called "Southern Strategy" in 1968, his was the "Imperial Presidency" and besides that Gerry Ford while a good family man and seemed like a "nice guy", wasn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Have you read the Shock Doctrine? I'm almost finished with it and I curse Milton Friedman and the rest of that gang from the University of Chicago School of Economics. I hope Milty is burning in hell and very soon the rest of the cabal is roasting right along side of him.

[Breeze54]

6. Nixon, Ford, Raygun, Cheney,bush and all the GOP can kiss my ass!

:P