To impeach or not to impeach

The American Prospect (subscribe to the dead tree edition - I do) offers two liberal perspectives on impeachment:

• Harold Meyerson takes the point of view of the Democratic Congressional "leadership".
• Robert Kuttner argues for sterner stuff along lines I've walked before.

Both agree the Bushists deserve impeachment and removal for real and serious high crimes and misdemeanors. Meyerson spends a fair amount of copy trying to distract from the merits of the case against these witless would-be tyrants using humor. For me, he just wasn't funny enough to accomplish that.

Meyerson does admit:

This kind of assault on the Constitution is precisely what the founding fathers were guarding against when they crafted its language on impeachment.

Hard to argue with that...

Once the topic of just desserts is finally done, Meyerson starts with:

First, there's no way that there will be sufficient votes to remove Bush and Cheney from office.

Given the primary loyalty of Republicans to their party instead of their country and its ideals, this is true. It also doesn't matter. Politics is about drawing strong and definite distinctions between you and your opposition. John Kerry didn't have a clue about this in 2004, though he appears to have finally learned. Unfortunately, the Democratic caucuses haven't learned this obvious, elementary lesson. Maybe the Blue Dogs just don't want to learn, and the "leadership" lets them lead their more clued in caucus-mates around by the nose.

Democrats and liberals continue to labor under the misapprehension that they should be concerned with governance. This shows them to be slow learners - they've had a decade at least to cotton onto the idea that there is no compromise possible with this bunch of nefarious Republicans, instead only the chance of getting taken - again.

The political point of impeaching Duhbya is to tie his lousy, no-account ass around the deserving necks of every Republican who won't abandon the Bushist abrogation of the Constitution. The Constitutional point of impeaching the Bushists is of course more important - and more obvious.

Meyerson's second reason not to impeach is that Nancy Pelosi would become President and that this would boomerang with the electorate. Uh, wouldn't this only be possible if conviction were possible in the Senate? No matter, I have a rejoinder: Impeachment could boomerang if it were an elite process inflicted upon the country. Democrats need to convince their constituents that impeachment is a necessity of our democracy. Shouldn't that fundamental principle be obvious?

If Pelosi's succession were still a problem, there is no reason not to make a suitable compromise. Tell President Cheney that he can only escape war crimes prosecution if he appoints Chuck Hagel president before resigning. He can only pardon himself for violations of U.S. law.

Third, Meyerson says, the precedent set by changing the party in command of the Executive Branch via impeachment would be bad. This is exactly wrong. The Founders put this remedy in place for that very need. If that is a reason not to impeach Duhbya and Darth, it's a reason not to impeach any President or Vice President ever.

It's no wonder Meyerson writes a column for the Washington Post.