THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT:Founders' Cure for Royalism

The John Nichols' new book, THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT:Founders' Cure for Royalism has been hailed by authors and historians Gore Vidal, Studs Terkel and Howard Zinn for its meticulous research into the intentions of the founders and embraced by activists for its groundbreaking arguments on behalf of presidential accountability. After reviewing recent books on impeachment, Rolling Stone political writer Tim Dickinson, writes in the latest issue of Mother Jones, "John Nichols' nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic, The Genius of Impeachment, stands apart. It concerns itself far less with the particulars of the legal case against Bush and Cheney, and instead combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the "heroic medicine" that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to 'reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.'"

The Genius of Impeachment can be found at independent bookstores and at www.amazon.com

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=149948

Editorial Reviews
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
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
A sharp and eye-opening argument that impeachment is an essential American institution.

"I guess these are yours. Impeach Eisenhower. Impeach Nixon. Impeach Lyndon Johnson. Impeach Ronald Reagan."—Annie Hall, going through Alvy Singer's political button collection in Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977)