What a Bush typical mess. It's the kind of thing that when or if it blows up into a surge of attacks and fighting will be played in whatever context best serves to look good for Bush. It could be "see what happens when we back off" or "this is democrats fault for being soft on war" or "see we're not done here yet".

Bush has land mined this whole arena so as to make a no win situation for a new administration, for his it would be used to incorrectly prove points. The common sense and care that will need to be taken with the situations left to be handled can be made to make a new president look like the new admin is making a mess out of things that were left a mess. This whole matter of tens of thousands of footloose soldiers was created when the lack of an original occupation plan cut half a million trained and armed troops loose instead of immediately putting them to work securing and maintaining peace.

Bush and Cheney need to be impeached so the madness can be headed off before more damage is done. This administration has been initiating ludicrous policies such as building permanent bases and paying terrorists to keep unstable temporary lulls in fighting and will undoubtedly initiate more actions that will create problems for the next administration.

In an investigation of the time line on the four biggest permanent bases there is no way Bush got legal senate approvals for either the go ahead to build them or the funding necessary at over a billion each. They were started as unilateral decisions that disregarded the oversight needed for billion dollar projects. It is not legal for Bush to initiate projects of this scale without senate support.

There have got to be dozens of known acts involving serious misconduct and breaches of constitutional law that would warrant impeachment proceedings against both Cheney and Bush.

Democrats seem to be convinced that any of the most visible and serious reasons that would in fact call for proceedings to be initiated would involve long drawn out investigations and political turmoil. It doesn't seem worth the effort when it would take longer than they have left in office, right?

WRONG:

Even though there are a lot of involved and complicated to prove issues that demand impeachment there are many that are well defined and simple to assess. I watched a senate oversight committee hearing last week where the question of impeachment kept coming up. One of the attorneys on the panel defined what woud be involved in the most effective execution of the process. Bush and Cheney both have refused to comply with oversight investigations. No matter what claims of executive privelege or secrecy on the grounds of threat to national security they are invoking they are in direct violation of constitutional oversight authority. No grey areas here, simply in violation which will result in impeachment.

Bush took it one step further which is to say he refuses to comply with legislation enacted specifically to hold him directly accountable for upholding the constitution. He stated he doesn't agree with that so he won't comply.

The process of initiating proceedings is as simple as looking at the breach and determining is he guilty. As this is a matter of public record there is no investigation needed there in order to proceed to a ruling. This is so black and white as to the responsibility to uphold the execution of legal legislation passed into constitutional law that it is a matter of did he do this or not. If he did which is again a matter of public record it would be put to a vote.

It is the same black and white issue as would be voted on by congress, was the constitution breached and if so the vote has to be for impeachment, there are no grey areas here. A no vote would indicate a senator or representative that thinks the president or his staff is above constitutional law, there are no choices here.

The estimate of time involved in these proceedings would be one to two weeks, there simply isn't anything to debate or investigate.

Meanwhile very few politicians seem to get the fact that Bush can still do a tremendous amount of damage in his remaining time in office. Committments can be made that will cost billions of dollars. The worst thing would be the raft of blanket pardons, immunity, and secrecy invoked on dubiously sensitive information in order to hinder investigations.

The worst legacy involved with not impeaching is the implied approval of breaches to the constitution. The simple act of not exercising oversight and accountability is to allow a precident to imply future approval. The next president who wishes to ignore the constitution can simply rely on the fact that it was allowed by the last president so it becomes a different matter to enforce.

Our government has evolved into a dysfunctional parody of what the people want based on a government that lies and misrepresents information critical to good choices.

Impeachment is not an option, it's the duty of every senator and representative to protect and enforce the constitution. Prosecuting war crimes and other serious misconduct is an option to be decided on later and will be easier to do right with a prior impeachment.