From Booklist
Arguing that regular elections are an insufficient democratic guardian against corrupt officeholders, Nichols, a writer for the liberal journal the Nation, exhorts his readers to support an impeachment of President George Bush. The impediment, as Nichols assesses current affairs, is not doubt that Bush (and British Prime Minister Tony Blair) by invading Iraq deserves this constitutional ejection from office but the wariness of politicians on the Left to consider the procedure. Nichols rejects the view that impeachment is unrealistic in the course of surveying the history of the impeachment power, citing cases from England, commentaries about the U.S. Constitution, and the impeachment proceedings against Nixon. As if to deflect a charge of partisanship, Nichols extols Republicans who demanded Truman’s impeachment, as well as Nixon’s. And to mobilize the anti-Bush grassroots, Nichols lauds impeachment activists in Vermont and Wisconsin. Substantively slight on constitutional analysis of the war power, this work relies on its power-to-the-people persona for its appeal, which may extend past the moment should Democratic victory in the November elections augment the author’s advocacy.
Gilbert Taylor
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