Impeachment: An Argument
Beyond its own sordid confines, Watergate has been redemptive—a disguised stroke of good fortune … The good fortune may yet turn to ashes, but I am one of those whom H. L. Mencken called the “optimists and chronic hopers of the world,” and I see gain for this country in the reassertion of old ideals and the renewal of government processes. Richardson had resigned his post in 1973 rather than follow President Richard Nixon’s directive to fire the first Watergate special prosecutor, Archibald Cox. The “Saturday Night Massacre,” as it became known, placed Nixon firmly on the path to disgrace.
