Throughout our history, Americans have been simultaneously inspired and seduced by the American presidency and concerned about the misuse of presidential power-from the time of Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR to Nixon, Reagan, and George W. Bush-as a grave threat to the United States. In Bad for Democracy, Dana D. Nelson goes beyond blaming particular presidents for jeopardizing the delicate balance of the Constitution to argue that it is the office of the presidency itself that endangers the great American experiment. The emotional impulse to see the president as a hero, Nelson contends, has ceded o |