I wasn’t paying attention back then (either pre-birth or shortly thereafter), but I think the situation was markedly different. Bush has commuted the sentence of a man who could implicate him and Cheney in a crime, and kept his 5th amendment rights in place, which means there’s nothing the prosecutors can offer Libby that Bush hasn’t already provided. I don’t think there’s any evidence that Ford was in the same position.
I also think this is just the last bad act in a string of them – the one that’s so clearly wrong, so indefensible, that we’re just done. I’ve clearly been “done” with the President for a while, but this latest outrage is only the latest in a disgraceful series of bad acts and criminal endeavors by this administration.