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Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor
Hmm, not that specifically. I'm more sick of the fact that human beings are so limited in their capacities that we don't think of talking seriously about a person until they are dead.
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What exactly do you want instead? Should we have spent the last 30+ years since his presidency ended taking time out of the day to discuss Gerald Ford? "Stop what you're doing, it's the Gerald Ford minute!"
It's not possible to continually keep every single person worthy of recognition in the public consciousness at all times. So yes, it does take a significant event such as death to bring them up again if the specific time of their influence has passed. I don't see anything wrong with that.
Nor do I see anything wrong with a glance back at critical historical moments with the benefit of 30+ years' distance. But while the pardoning of Nixon was certainly monstrously important, it doesn't seem to me to be all that complex or shrouded in mystery to warrant the amount of talking head time it's gotten. I know I wasn't there, but the number of times I've heard, "Damned if he did, damned if he didn't" and other similar conclusions is telling me that the influences, risks, and benefits are all pretty well known and agreed upon. He did a lot more in his life than make that one decission. Let's move on, eh?