Impresssively nuanced for an article that needs to get read by a readership not open to more simplistic interpretations. Packed with detail evidencing the complexity of the skirmishing.
Most striking "statistic":
> Pro-impeachment
>Democrats averaged eight times more tobacco money than did the
>anti-impeachment Republicans.
The overall analysis appears to be one of describing in much detail the conflicting aims of different protagonists, emphasising always the economic and sociological. It succeeds in suggesting there was much more to impeachment than the personal drama, and the collective psychological response.
My guess is that Democrat and Republican strategists would be well advised to read the fine print.
The wider question that should be posed is the need for consitutional reform. There have been a number of patiotic US commentators who have been reported over here saying the Constitution stood up pretty well and they are proud of it. Underneath though there is the scramble for money to represent democratic will which is a source of scandal in many countries. The adversarial bourgeois two-party political system without tight regulation of funding, including soft money, is poison, and one of the ways capital maintains its dominance. Note how Nowell ironically brings out as an obvious given that different sections of business have been trying to influence the agenda.
Any chance of anyone illustrating how this sort of analysis could look in a more liberal or left wing paper?
Chris Burford
London