rst president to resign. President Ford, exercising the president's pardoning power, pardoned Nixon for all federal crimes that he committed or may have committed or taken part in. Johnson and Clinton were the only two presidents to be impeached and win acquittal. Clinton won by a larger margin than Johnson did.Presidents also claim to possess executive privilege, or the right to withhold information from Congress and the public. In court proceedings concerning Watergate, President Nixon and Whitewater, President Clinton sought withhold evidence from the Supreme Court. The courts ruled that executive privilege did not immunize either of them from judicial proceedings.After the long drawn out and eventually unpopular Vietnam War and the excesses of Watergate, the presidency passed into an era of criticism and reassessment. The office was seen to have become inordinately powerful and to be threatening or violating civil liberties. It was viewed as having placed the political system in disarray by drawing excessive power to the presidency at the expense of the other branches. All too often the presidency's power expands by congressional default by the disinclination of the legislature to deal directly with national problems. The bureaucracy of the executive branch has shown itself incapable of a great deal of initiative, addicted to established routines and averse to new ideas with their accompanying risks of failure, the bureaucracy has preferred to leave innovation to the White House staff. This in turn has perhaps encouraged presidential subordinates to use and abuse their power in ways that are symptomatic of the presidency's excesses. In the late 1970s, however, public sentiment began to call for a more assertive presidency that could provide greater leadership to a fragmented and interest ridden Congress and that could act decisively on the array of stubborn problems that troubled Americans. President Jimmy Carter's inabil...
