Gerald Ford

The test case for separating popularity from accountability. Ford took over after Nixon resigned over Watergate, declared that 'our long national nightmare is over' and ran a noticeably more open White House. His pardon of Nixon a month later ended any prospect of holding the former president to account in court and cost him dearly in the polls. The institutional repairs of the period, from the Federal Election Campaign Act amendments of 1974 to the Church Committee, came largely from Congress rather than from him.