Pages 307 and 308 in the LEP textbook have bothered me for some time. It is not the content given that I have a problem with, because why should I object to Jefferson's interaction with the federal courts during his presidency? No, my discontent lies in how and with what tone the impeachment of Samuel Chase and John Pickering is approached. The reader is not even given a chance to form his or her own opinion on the events and people involved before the writer throws in bias in the form of words such as "notorious", "embarrassment", "insanity", "bully", and "overbearing." Not only is this bias distracting from the facts of what happened but it is also confusing, as is the case with the barbs against John Randolph whose only description prior to the attack is as an agrarian Republican. Why, I personally found myself asking, is the text bad mouthing this man who should be pro-Jefferson, and so supported by this pro-Jefferson writer? Why, I continued to ask, did this supposedly pro-Jefferson man badmouth Jefferson in the midst of the impeachment case? The writer is too busy focusing on the negative characteristics to explain in greater detail. This criticism is not to say that the characteristics portrayed are not true, as they very well may be, though probably only to a certain extent. This criticism is more to say that the bias brings the book's credibility into question. The question of which situations the writer is willing to dramatize, if he or she so easily does so in order to glorify Jefferson and his administration, comes to mind. I am not saying to stay emotionally distant and uninvolved with your subject, only to keep those emotions in check and to not so eagerly let your readers known about them.
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