Nixon's decision to resign may prove disappointing to those who thought that the entire Watergate affair was not really about Nixon but about a more fundamental issue in the American political system, i.e., the centralisation of executive power in the White House. The willingness of a number of Democrats and Republicans to consider offering immunity from prosecution to Nixon if he decided to resign dramatised their unwillingness to question seriously the absolutist powers of the American presidency. Impeachment would have certainly involved a critical examination of presideniial power
