Impeachment. It has a ring to it, don’t you agree? It evokes images of the White House, of Nixon, of Clinton, of Senate hearings, of clever and brave journalists meeting their anonymous contacts in multi-storey car parks in the dead of night.

It was the Watergate hearings of 1973 that kicked off the culture wars that have blighted American politics ever since. In the course of the Republic’s greatest ever scandal, the presidency was traduced, transformed from a unifying institution that inspired the loyalty of 200 million citizens to a partisan political vehicle of party advantage.

A young Illinois lawyer, Hillary Rodham, was given her first taste of public profile when she advised the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate hearings. If she is successful in her presidential bid this November, she can probably expect the first attempt to impeach her shortly before her inauguration in January.