Book excerpt: "At a time when the major media have been at their most passive and subservient, Lewis Lapham stands virtually alone among mainstream American journalists in having consistently seen through the fog of lies and narcissism surrounding the Bush administration from its earliest days in Washington. In bringing together Lapham's trenchant political commentaries from his National Magazine Award-winning Harper's "Notebook" column, Pretensions to Empire gives us a complete picture of a presidency whose ambition and abuses of power have led the United States down a precipitous path, culminating in Lapham's eloquent case for impeachment."--BOOK JACKET.