The impeachment remedy

Impeachment is a political remedy. It has due process trappings and procedural analogies to criminal procedure, but its only authorized punishment is removal from office and disqualification from eligibility for office, and it is specifically exempted from the prohibition against double jeopardy.

Impeachment was intended to be an extraordinary remedy, and that's why the Republicans were wrong to pursue it against Bill Clinton. If lying about blow jobs in Washington were extraordinary, we'd all know that the country was run by lesbians - and they'd be doing other things that the likes of Ken Starr would find unspeakable (but would document and footnote with prurient glee anyway).

The wimpy Washington Democrats have failed to make this distinction, too, or they would be able to distinguish between the Constitutional abuses of the Bushists and the marital abuses of the Clenis. Instead, Nancy and Harry let the conventional post-Democratic Beltway narrative and their own preference for playing it safe to bollix them.

Ironically, the Bushists' transparently bogus Constitutional interpretation of the Presidency constrains them to accept impeachment as political. If the President is immune from the law, as they have repeatedly claimed in a reprise of Nixonian defenses, impeachment is the only remedy between elections for an Executive run amok.

But logic and law don't work on these guys. Need an example? All the Republicans who pursued Clinton on grounds that no impact on government now blithely accept Duhbya and Darth's blanket claims of immunity.

The only goals the Bushist Republicans (practically speaking, all the party's officials) pursue consistently are their own power and tax cuts for the wealthy. When they have those, they don't need logic or law.

Originally a comment on Philosoraptor.