No-Fault Politics.

• Author: Nichols, John
• Position: Review - Brief Article

Speaking of poets and the Vietnam War, it's worth noting that the only real poet-politician of the American century, former Minnesota Senator and 1968 antiwar Presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, penned the most valuable "political" book of 1998. With mercifully few references to Kenneth Starr--save a delicious critique of the dereliction of duty by Congresses that give a "fascistic writ of power" to special prosecutors--McCarthy's No-Fault Politics (Times Books, 1998) diagnoses what ails the body politic with the skill of a man who has been trying to cure it for the better part of the century.

On the surface, this is a cynical book. McCarthy's chapter on "How Not To Make a President (Or an Administration)" begins with the observation that "Suggestions for reforming the election process are mostly doomed to failure, since basically what is called for is responsible decision-making on the part of the...