Musing's musings

Basta!

I am troubled by a phenomenon I've been encountering more and more often around the reaches of Left Blogistan these days: namely, the "Impeach! Or! Else!" crowd, as I've taken to calling them.

But before I segue into the main theme of this rant, let me indulge in a little prelude, which I will use to put out a few salient points it will be important to remember as I go on here. First, it is both my professional opinion as an historian, and my personal opinion as a reasonably well-informed citizen, that the Hedgemony will absolutely go down in the history books as the worst bunch of bunglers, buffoons, wankers, nitwits, ignoramuses, criminals, boodlers, and all-around scum-of-the-earth bad guys this nation has ever known. And please God, the worst we'll ever have to know.

Second, I believe in my heart of hearts that virtually without exception, starting at the top and working all the way down to the least and last of the political appointees, every member of the Hedgemony is quite likely guilty at least of "high crimes and misdemeanours" within the meaning of Article II, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution. But I also believe, rationally and informedly, that we do not now have, and are extremely likely ever to get in the time remaining before his term ends in 550 days anyway, the necessary or even the sufficient legal evidence that would be needed actually to impeach a single one of them.

Thirdly, I recognize (which the "Do! It! Now!" crowd can't seem to manage) that our slim majority in the House makes it highly unlikely that articles of impeachment would ever be agreed to, and that our not-even-majority (since I don't consider Lieberman a real Democrat) in the Senate means there's absolutely no way we'd ever get a conviction. And furthermore, I submit that this week's late-night filibuster session in the Senate makes it reasonably plain that even if we were lucky enough to peel off a couple of Republicans and get them talking about impeachment, when it came down to crunch time, they'd revert to type and circle the wagons around their president.

Fourthly, I recognize that the world is a highly complex place, and growing more so all the time. I know that our system of government was really not designed for one-party rule, but rather set up in such a way as to require compromise and negotiation from all sides most of the time. I look around me and see such a tremendous host of problems facing me, facing my government, facing us as a nation, and facing all of us as citizens of one small troubled planet, that I sometimes despair of ever solving even one of them.

Боже мой

Cindy Sheehan is a wonderful woman who has suffered a tremendous loss, and I applauded her efforts to pressure the pretzelnit to end his futile War on Nouns. But I'm afraid that Ms. Sheehan has now officially jumped the shark: she's considering running against Nancy Pelosi in 2008 unless the speaker "...introduces articles of impeachment against President Bush in the next two weeks."

The title of this post, Russian for "Oh, my God!" was more or less my reaction when I read the news last night. There is literally nothing good that can either be said about or that will come of, Ms. Sheehan's (largely empty, in my estimation) threat. To state the most obvious problem, Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House of Representatives. As I can state from bitter personal experience, given that I live in the Fourteenth District of Illinois that is represented in Congress by the last Speaker of the House, J. Dennis Hastert, that position carries with it both an enormous amount of political clout and even more pork. And that tends to make voters very happy to be represented by the person holding that particular office. The idea that the voters in Ms. Pelosi's district are likely to chuck it all away for a political unknown is, not to put too fine a point on it, ludicrous.

Then there's the fact that Ms. Sheehan does not currently live in the district Ms. Pelosi represents. The AP article states at the end that the California Secretary of State's office claims there are no residency requirements for congressional races, but I'm fairly certain that's not factually correct except in states that have so few citizens that their representative in Congress is an at-large member, which is not the case in California. Federal election law, on the other hand, does state that representatives to Congress "...shall be elected only from districts..." established by law. To me, that at least implies that the representative must live in the district which s/he intends to represent. Certainly the Republicans seemed to think so, when in 2004 former Rep. Phil Crane contested the candidacy of his challenger (and subsequent replacement) Melissa Bean on the grounds that she lived just a few blocks outside the boundaries of the district in question--whereas Ms. Sheehan lives somewhere in or around Sacramento, quite a ways away from San Francisco, where Ms. Pelosi's district is located.

Unfortunately for Ms. Sheehan's cause, her actions here may also be taken to imply that the movement to impeach the Hedgemony has also jumped the shark. It is absolutely unreasonable, given that we've only barely started to scratch the surface of investigations, to insist that articles of impeachment against the president be drawn up in the next two weeks. We don't work that way in this country, and Ms. Sheehan of all people ought to know that. In this country, we wait for the evidence to come in before we start filing charges, and we don't have the evidence right now. Whether or not it is a productive use of the Congress's time investigating the myriad scandals that have plagued the Hedgemony is a question on which reasonable people can agree to differ, as is the question of whether or not impeaching the pretzelnit will do anything more than make a symbolic point, given that we do not now have, and are unlikely to get at any time in the future before the end of the Hedgemony's term, enough votes in the Senate for a conviction. But what is absolutely not open to debate is how we go about the process. First we investigate. Then, and only then, do we proceed to articles of impeachment--and that only if the evidence supports making them in the first place.

It's hard to see this announcement as anything other than a cheap publicity stunt on the part of Ms. Sheehan. Now that she's left the anti-war movement and the Democratic Party, the spotlight has moved off of her. Making this announcement will put her back in the limelight, at least for a little while. But if she thought she was getting slammed when she was just calling for Bush to end the clusterfuck in Iraq, she ain't seen nothing in comparison to what is likely to come her way if she tries to primary Nancy Pelosi, much less to run against her in the general. To put it mildly, she'll be excoriated. Just look at what Senator Clinton had to endure (and still does, in at least some quarters) when she decided to run for the Senate in New York.

Plus, while the number of people favoring the impeachment of the Hedgemony does seem to be on the rise, I've yet to see a single poll with numbers that could be relied on that suggested it was anywhere near the top of most people's lists of things they want their government or their elected officials to be doing. Sure, most of us would like to see CheneyBu$h frogmarched out of the White House. But we're more worried about stagnating wages, the skyrocketing cost of housing, food, gasoline, education, and healthcare (to name just a few), and a host of other issues that touch far more lives far more closely than the Inside Politics game of impeachment ever will. Given that impeachment seems to be the only horse Ms. Sheehan has to ride, it seems prima facie unlikely that she will be able to ride that horse very far into an election.

Frankly, if Ms. Sheehan is truly interested in moving the country forward, it would make a whole lot more sense for her to pick a Republican incumbent to run against. She'd also likely have a far better chance of success. Somehow, though, I don't get the sense that winning is what Ms. Sheehan really cares about. She just wants to make a point--and that's a lousy reason to run for any office. It's an even worse reason to try to unseat the third most powerful person in the U.S. government.

Hence the name

It appears that the Virgin Ben didn't get the memo about how we're all supposed to be bipartisan nowadays. I'm not going to dignify the low misogynistic slur he uttered about the Speaker of the House by repeating it, but suffice it to say it's a lot easier to understand why he's a law student and still can't get any.

But you must run (do not walk, run!) to see Shakespeare's Sister take down the little prick. WARNING: Before clicking on the following link, put down any beverages or food items. Chew and/or swallow, as necessary. Otherwise, I'm not responsible for what happens to your monitor. And it might be wise not to click on this link if you're reading this on a computer in a public place where people are going to look at you strangely if you suddenly burst into uncontrollable, maniacal laughter. And if you have a tendency to let loose a little when you laugh, you might want to pay a visit to the little girls'/boys' room before clicking on this link.

OK. You have been suitably warned. Now go and enjoy.