I think that when the "honest conservatives" reject Bush they're just setting up their assault on the Democratic president they expect to see elected next year. Their way of digging themselves out from under the Bush disaster (and obscuring their own massive role in that disaster) will be to swear that "Never again can an American President be allowed that kind of free hand!" This will justify their fighting the new Democratic President tooth and nail for every inch of ground.

For example, Bush's politicization of the career staff in Justice and elsewhere was a very bad thing, no? And certainly this kind of thing has to stop, no? So we will forbid the new Democratic President to interfere with career personnel, with the result that all of the political hacks Bush put in civil service positions will be untouchable. (When that happens, can we expect the media to understand what's going on? No, of course not. Can we expect the Democrats to understand? Not really, but this is one area where I'd trust Rahm Emmanuel. Send a hack to catch a hack.)

Now that they've stolen the horse, they're going to lock the barn door. It's just like January 2001: once Bush was inaugurated, the media and the Republicans decided that sabotage by impeachment and Gingrichean nastiness are really very bad things after all. So now the same people who worked so hard trying to impeach Clinton for almost nothing are telling us that it's unthinkable to do anything serious about Bush's much graver crimes.

In the long run we need a two-party system, and ultimately we want the Republican Party to be rebuilt on sane, civilized principles. But let's not rush into this. For the moment our task is to boot the Republicans out of office and start repairing the damage they've done. The role of the sane conservatives in this will be to sit quietly in the back of the room with paper bags over their heads and their hands folded on their laps.

(From Brad Delong's comments and Seeing the Forest.)

You're also limning the outlines of proto-fascist thinking because Mathews et al. are pantingly, achingly expressing their rampant sexism and their glorification of the military, two warning signs of a fascist state. That's why Bush in uniform made them cream in pilot's garb made them cream in their jeans.

It's the desire for a master and a daddy to take care of everyone so we don't need to bother our little heads with democracy and stuff any more. An large proportion of Bush's core constituency are motivated by a cult of personality. If they give up on Bush they'll probably find someone worse.

I don't understand people who say that this story is frivolous. besides being humorless socialist feminazis, they fail to realize that networking and good looks are the key to success. Now that they've won the hotness contest, the sky's the limit for these promising youngsters! This could be the "American Idol" of journalism!

Ellison is fantastic. Minneapolis should be proud. Classiest guy in the House.

Some might think that the impeachable offenses by Bush and Cheney enumerated by Kucinich might make the impeachment motion newsworthy. But people thinking this way would be wrong, and this would be because because they weren't trained professional journalists.

A prospective journalist who comes into journalism school believing that so-called "impeachable offenses" are news will quickly be disabused of that notion. If he's recalcitrant, he washes out of journalism school and has to step down to a lesser career, if such a thing exists. Journalism is an austere and demanding calling, and isn't for the soft-headed.

Wait till Obama goes bowling again, or gets a haircut. Then you'll see some news.

You wrote:" First of all, I didn't take a position on whether Bush deserves to be impeached, and I'm not doing so now either."

Well, you should have, then and now. If you think that Bush deserves to be impeached, you should support the impeachment resolution instead of trying to guess what other people will think. If you don't think that Bush deserves to be impeached, you should say so, and oppose Kucinich's motion for that reason. What would have been so hard about that? If Bush deserves to be impeached, isn't it relevant to Kucinich's impeachment motion?

There's no reason why you couldn't have done that -- you're an opinion journalist, and Salon is an opinion journal. You've deliberately chosen to be a non-functioning citizen and a political null. Millions of Americans know better than you, but they don't have your microphone.

America has been betrayed by the Republicans, most of the Democrats, and most of the media. It will take us a decade or more for us to dig out from the mess Bush has made, and all we'll be able to expect from you is sniping from the sidelines.

Your explanation makes you look worse.