Is there any doubt that this administration will run last minute favors in the form of insidious giveaways and corporate gifts?

The worst legacy this administration will leave if Bush and Cheney are not impeached has far deeper levels of damage than is being acknowledged.

Bush will grant blanket immunities to everyone involved in scandals we know of and many we don't, challenges to malfeasance will be made harder to accomplish because this administration was never challenged in terms of breaches to constitutional law.

Investigations into malfeasance will be made hard to impossible with unjustified secrecy classifications and disappeared documentation along with blanket immunities.

Continued abuses of constitutional laws will be hard to challenge because they weren't challenged in this administration when they were being abused. Unchallenged abuses run the risk of being almost approved by a lack of being challenged.

Democrats are worried about what a long impeachment process and the investigation taking longer than Bush has left in office would do to the party. The senate oversight committee has boldly stated that each and every senator and representative is not doing their job of upholding and protecting the constitution if they don't. Not only that but that the hard to investigate and prove cases are not the place to fight the battle. Bush and Cheney have both publicly refused to comply with legislation and oversight investigations legally initiated by the senate oversight committee. Bush refused to comply with legislation specifically enacted to force him to comply with his job of enforcing legislations, he refused to comply.

The process of impeachment would be as simple as answering the question are they guilty of intentionally defying the constitution, and if so taking a vote on whether it in fact is accurately true. There is no gray area and there is no choice of how each and every senator and representative would have to vote because every no vote to impeach would be indicative of another administration bad apple earmarked for elimination from our system.

It's that simple, one week to accomplish and democrats would rule in an unobstructed way that will not be possible without the impeachments.

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.