I posted this last month, but near the end of a thread and apparently not many people have seen it. Those who can think only in terms of "impeach now" need to consider a few facts about the way the world works. They seem to think that a strong case of illegal or unconstitutional activities is all it takes. And to a certain extent, that is correct. But impeachment by the House is only part of the process of the removal of an official. Without a conviction by the Senate, the perp walks.

The real problem is that impeachment is not a legal process (despite the trappings) but is a political one. And politics is not the art of the obvious, but rather the art of the possible.

As then Representative Gerald Ford observed in 1970,

An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.

So it doesn't really matter what the crimes are, it is a question of whether a majority of the House of Representatives will vote to impeach. And impeachment is just the first step. It is like an indictment handed up by a grand jury. After the House impeaches, the Senate has to convict before removal can take place. And while it takes a simple majority for the House to impeach, it takes a two-thirds majority for the Senate to convict.

So if there is sufficient discipline in the Democratic-controlled House, impeachment could be voted at any time. But without 67 votes (actually, it is two thirds of the members present, so the number needed for conviction could be lower) in the Senate to convict, it is a pointless gesture (unless the purpose is to bring the government to a standstill as the Republicans did in 1998-99).

In addition, voting impeachment simply because they can is not a good move on the part of House Democrats because the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 (3 USC § 19) makes the Speaker of the House second in line for the presidency. Since impeachment proceedings have to begin in the House, any move by the Speaker to call for impeachment, especially, as is necessary in this case, of both the President and the Vice-President, would immediately be slimed as an attempted coup d'état. This is why Pelosi cannot be seen to call for impeachment. It is a conflict of interest that seems to be built into the succession act. The drive for impeachment has to come from elsewhere than the Speaker of the House, preferably from public outcry or from a state legislature.

For the time being, the best course is to continue oversight hearings, with the appointment of special prosecutors as fresh abuses come to light (as they surely will), until the public insistence on impeachment becomes irresistible. Like any political initiative, support has to be built for it. 39% is not sufficient support.

Tell it to President Gore or President Kerry.

I'm not disagreeing with your point — the certainty of getting slimed is not a good reason for not doing something. On the other hand, the certainty of failure generally is. Politics is still the art of the possible. And while it's all very uplifting to "dream the impossible dream", it doesn't pay off in politics unless you lay your groundwork very carefully (or somehow manage to tap into an unexpected swell of popular support). And impeaching just because you have the votes to do it in the House when it would take a major miracle to get a conviction in the Senate does not make for credible politics. This is why good prosecutors do not go for indictments unless they are confident that they have the evidence to get a conviction. Having the perp walk makes a prosecutor look weak. So unless there are enough Republican senators to make a conviction in the Senate possible, it is a waste of time and credibility for the House to impeach.

Don't get me wrong here. There is nothing I would like more than to see all these yutzes impeached and convicted. Most particularly the yutz-in-chief. Not only because of his crimes, but because if he isn't impeached he's going to get a pension of $186,600 a year for the rest of his life on your and my dime. Now $186,600 a year is chump change for this guy, but it's my money (and yours).

Would you two please get a room where you can fling rhetorical feces at each other to your heart's content and leave the rest of us in peace to enjoy our (early) Sunday morning? We have important matters that we would like to discuss, such as how to break the MSM's stranglehold on our public discourse and further the route to the necessary impeachment of the worst administration of this country since Warren G. Harding. At the moment, neither of you is contributing anything substantive to the discussion.

shooter: and obviously generated by Democrat propaganda in the wake of Clinton's bombing of Iraq in 1998.

Shooter, you've shown yourself that the American people don't have that long a memory (and in any case "obviously" is code for "there is no evidence whatsoever"). I'm afraid that you're one president too early. "Obviously" the bombing of Baghdad in February of 2001 (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0216-03.htm) was much clearer in everybody's memory than anything that happened in Iraq in 1998. But shooter's premise is that the American people remember the bombing of 1998 but not that of 2001. How convenient.