I know, Nader wrote this. But his points are valid.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/13/4512/Dodging Impeachment
by Ralph Nader
snip//
The Democratic Party line on impeachment is that Bush and Cheney are the most impeachable White House duo in American history (they believe this privately). The Democrats do not want to distract attention from their legislative agenda, and need Republican votes for passage. Moreover, they do not have the votes to obtain the requisite two-thirds of the members present for conviction in the Senate.
Strangely, none of these excuses bothered Republicans when they impeached Bill Clinton in the House for lying under oath about sex and proceeded to a full trial in the Senate where they failed to get the required votes. Can Clinton’s “high crimes and misdemeanors” begin to compare with this White House crime wave?
The last question to Cong. Olver was from a young veteran back from Iraq and Afghanistan. “What could we possibly do to bring you around to our way of thinking,” he asked?
Cong. Olver’s response, after several seconds of silence, was “You have to prove to me that impeachment will not be counterproductive.”
Members of Congress should apply the same standard to themselves that they like to apply to members of the Executive and Judicial branches-namely to honor their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. That Oath is supposed to transcend political calculations.
Maybe the Democrats think that Bush and Cheney are such wild and crazy guys that a serious impeachment drive in Congress would provoke the two draft-dodgers to launch a military emergency, strike Iran or otherwise generate a crisis, based on their continual fulminations about the “war on terror,” that would engulf the Democrats and throw them on the defensive for 2008.
In short, the Democrats may be viewing Bush and Cheney as being so defiantly, aggressively impeachable on so many counts as to be unimpeachable. That is, with the White House harboring so much political nitroglycerine, don’t even try to remove it.
Such a cowardly position would make quite a precedent for future Presidents who want to illegally elbow out the other two branches of government and our Constitution.