Forty years ago many Americans celebrated the demise of the imperial presidency with the resignation of Richard Nixon. Today it is clear they celebrated too soon. Nixon’s view of presidential powers, summed up in his infamous statement that, “when the president does it that means it is not illegal,� is embraced by the majority of... Read More

President George Bush's State of the Union address on 23 January was comparatively somber and restrained. There was little of the usual jingoism and flag-waving that normally characterizes these carefully staged nationalistic spectacles which always remind me of old Chairman Leonid Brezhnev's harangues to the Soviet Central Committee, whose members, like many US legislators, would... Read More