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".......allowing Jimmy Carter a free pass on the issue of presidential pardons, as was done in a recent piece by his former chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, on this page, ignores both the evidence of history and the trauma that President Carter visited on this country during his earliest days in office ("The First Grifters," Feb. 20). Indeed, it could be said that the seeds of Bill Clinton's political arrogance were sown by Jimmy Carter's own hand.
While the Carter presidency may have handled cases of individual presidential pardons with great care, Mr. Carter's first official act as president was to pardon, en masse, all those who had been or could be charged with draft evasion during the Vietnam era. Motivated by the ever-present desire of American politicians to "heal the wounds" of the Vietnam War, and beyond doubt manipulated by the army of antiwar McGovernites who had seized control of the Democratic Party, Mr. Carter's gesture had the symbolic effect of elevating everyone who had opposed the Vietnam War to the level of moral purist, and by implication insulting those who often had struggled just as deeply with the moral dimensions of the war and had decided, often at great sacrifice, to honor the laws of their country and serve.
Nor did President Carter's abuse of power end with the pardoning of draft evaders. Some had criticized this blanket amnesty as having made class distinctions between college boys who were "enlightened" enough to oppose the draft and blue-collar boys who had gone into the military and then either seen the light regarding the war or suffered the supposed abuses of the military system. Liberal groups and antiwar politicians assailed the "inequities" of military justice and the "randomness" of its characterization of service when one left the military, despite the fact that 97% of those who served during Vietnam had been discharged under honorable circumstances. Within weeks of pardoning all the draft evaders, Mr. Carter invoked his powers as commander in chief and ordered that the "bad paper" military discharges of hundreds of thousands of deserters, malcontents and nonperformers be mandatorily upgraded, so long as they met one of six easily attained criteria.
Again President Carter had upset a delicately balanced apple cart among the Vietnam generation. By wiping the slate clean for those who had dodged the draft or created problems while in the military, he signaled to those who had served honorably during a horribly emotional period that their self-discipline, loyalty, wounds and even deaths did not matter. The Congress, and particularly the Committees on Veterans Affairs, where I then served as a House counsel, spent the next six months in emotional argument and negotiation. The House and Senate at times engaged in heated floor debates and recriminations before some measure of historical standards were mandated to accompany any veterans benefits awarded to recipients of Mr. Carter's falsely upgraded discharges."
After reading what you just posted, no wonder the questioner put his question this way.
That makes me SICK:((
Again President Carter had upset a delicately balanced apple cart among the Vietnam generation. By wiping the slate clean for those who had dodged the draft or created problems while in the military, he signaled to those who had served honorably during a horribly emotional period that their self-discipline, loyalty, wounds and even deaths did not matter. The Congress, and particularly the Committees on Veterans Affairs, where I then served as a House counsel, spent the next six months in emotional argument and negotiation. The House and Senate at times engaged in heated floor debates and recriminations before some measure of historical standards were mandated to accompany any veterans benefits awarded to recipients of Mr. Carter's falsely upgraded discharges."
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Your whole post of James Webb's comments is valuable.
APD, you got it nailed, my FRiend. Webb is also quite an author and several of his books deal with honor and duty. I'm disappointed in his stand against elements of the WoT but his perspective on the Vietnam era is right on.
"Liberal groups and antiwar politicians assailed the "inequities" of military justice and the "randomness" of its characterization of service when one left the military, despite the fact that 97% of those who served during Vietnam had been discharged under honorable circumstances. Within weeks of pardoning all the draft evaders, Mr. Carter invoked his powers as commander in chief and ordered that the "bad paper" military discharges of hundreds of thousands of deserters, malcontents and nonperformers be mandatorily upgraded, so long as they met one of six easily attained criteria."
"Again President Carter had upset a delicately balanced apple cart among the Vietnam generation. By wiping the slate clean for those who had dodged the draft or created problems while in the military, he signaled to those who had served honorably during a horribly emotional period that their self-discipline, loyalty, wounds and even deaths did not matter."
Just another reason why Jimmy Carter may have been even more corrupt and dangerous to America than the Clintoons were.