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Jim
Webb Reviews:
THE NEW AMERICAN MILITARISM:
How Americans Are Seduced by War
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Wall Street Journal
Articles:
The Insult of Carter's
Mass Pardon
Letters to the Editor
February 23, 2001
It is a
pleasurable experience to
watch Bill Clinton finally
being judged, even by his own
party, for the ethical
fraudulence that has
characterized his entire
political career. But 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.
President
Carter's
all-embracing
pardon of
Americans
who
refused to
serve in
the
military
was
without
precedent.
After
World War
II,
President
Truman had
given full
amnesty on
a
case-by-case
basis to a
limited
number of
draft
evaders,
but only
after they
had
actually
been
convicted
of the
offense
and then
appealed
to a
review
board that
examined
the
circumstances
of their
cases.
Following
World War
I,
President
Roosevelt
had
pardoned
those who
had been
convicted
of draft
violations
and had
served out
their
prison
terms, but
did not
extend
even this
limited
pardon to
those who
had left
the
country.
Much was
said about
President
Lincoln's
sweeping
pardon of
Confederate
soldiers
after the
Civil War,
but this
gesture
was made
to those
who had
indeed
served,
honoring
the
judgments
of their
state
governments.
Lincoln
made this
distinction
clear in
his
remarks
when
issuing
the
pardons,
and by
pointedly
refusing
to extend
such
amnesty to
Confederate
officials
and men of
property.
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.
These
acts
resonate
when one
evaluates
Bill
Clinton's
incessantly
arrogant
presidency,
from the
endless
string of
conscious
and
serious
abuses of
power to
the
"conversion"
of White
House
furniture
and china
on his way
out the
door. For
what we
are seeing
are the
echoes of
a
pervasive
elitism,
from
people who
were
taught
when young
that the
laws that
applied to
their
countrymen
did not
necessarily
apply to
them.
As one
who shares
Mr.
Clinton's
ethnic
background,
and whose
family was
not
afforded
the
opportunity
for higher
education
until this
generation,
it is
irritating
beyond
words to
see
commentators
repeatedly
refer to
his
actions as
"redneck"
or typical
of
"white
trash"
behavior.
Rednecks
might hang
a velvet
picture of
Elvis on
their
living
room wall,
but
precious
few would
tolerate
any sort
of conduct
that might
demean the
greatness
of their
country,
much less
take part
in it.
Check the
casualty
lists in
any war.
See who
stands
tall and
salutes
when the
flag
passes by.
Note who
wasn't
sleeping
in
Lincoln's
bedroom
when Bill
Clinton
occupied
the White
House.
Instead,
Bill and
Hillary's
misadventures
provide an
echo of a
different
time and
place,
another
set of
values. Of
bright
students
brought to
good
schools
and
becoming
convinced,
as Ben
Stein
wrote of
his years
at Yale
Law School
with the
Clintons,
"that
we were
supermen,
floating
above
history
and
precedent,
the
natural
rulers of
the
universe.
. . . The
law did
not apply
to
us."
Of young
men who
not only
avoided
service
when
58,000 of
their
peers were
dying, but
who
persuaded
a softie
like Jimmy
Carter to
say that
they were
right, all
of them,
without
distinction.
The law?
The law
was what
you made
it.
Americans,
bred on
fairness
and
passionate
about
equality,
have a way
of
collectively
summing
things up
as time
goes by.
It is
accurate
to say
that Jimmy
Carter's
presidency
never
fully
recovered
from his
naive but
well-intentioned
opening
moments.
And one
can
predict
that Bill
Clinton
will never
live down
the
arrogance
of his
final
departure.
James
Webb
Arlington,
Va.
James Webb was an
Assistant Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan
Administration.
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