Come on, Glenn, just come out and say it: Cheney and Bush need to be impeached. In that order. Only with an impeachment process could we get a comprehensive enough (thought not necessarily totally comprehensive) overall investigation into the many flagrant high crimes and misdemeanors of this administration. Any lesser investigation at this point risks becoming a dragged-out process yielding merely small crumbs and minor players (possibly) indicted.

Could a citizen who is a victim of what you term felonies just bring charges against Bush and Cheney? As individual citizens, not as president and vice president? Against Cheney, couldn't someone charge him for the innumerable crimes he has (ahem, allegedly) committed?

....How about class action suits?

Impeachment is not a dirty word. Impeachment was included in the Constitution by the Founders to enable the Legislative Branch to hold the Executive and Judicial Branches accountable for their actions. Over the course of time the Executive Branch has attempted to drum into us the perception that it is a radical action amounting to a coup d'etat. It is not.

Alexander Hamilton (not exactly a flaming liberal), in Federalist 65, explained that the subjects of impeachments are "those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or ... from the abuse or violation of some public trust." He goes on to say that the true spirit of impeachment is "designed as a method of NATIONAL INQUEST into the conduct of public men".

In many ways therefore impeachment can be an educational process. Assuming that the Congressional hearings would be covered by the media at least as zealously as Paris Hilton's incarceration, people would have an opportunity to gain an insight into the operations and motives of our current employees in the Executive Branch. Can anyone doubt that the public needs and deserves enlightenment into this Administration's activities both domestically and in foreign affairs?

Impeachment is the appropriate teaching device if Congress has the will to employ it.

At this late date, I think your theory of "gathering forces for final assault" is wishful thinking.

Afraid so. In my opinion, it's fantasy. I only wish it were true. I'll reiterate the opinion that the House and Senate would have to be forced into taking meaningful action by a strong wave of public opinion. A wave similar to what was seen during the recent immigration debate, when senators were engulfed in phone calls and emails from an enraged segment of the public, many of whom would like to see not comprehensive reform, but rather the final solution. Driven, I'm afraid, by fear and racism on the part of many. Not all, but many.

It may be that many commentors here and at other left-0-sphere sites have written fairly long, reasonable, compelling lettters to their Reps. and/or senators arguing for impeachment. But I wonder if those may not be much less effective than a phone call which, when picked up by the poor house office staffer, has to be held one foot away from the ear, due to the volume, flying foam, and violent content.

I'll bet the calls that defeated the immigration bill were loud, angry, threatening, vindictive, because they were driven by fear. The american people, or a good-sized hunk of them, are afraid of brown people and the insidious alien culture and language they are bringing with them. There is no such fear of executive power and abuse. Not only no fear of it, but no knowlege of it.

The recent cave in by Republicans on the immigration bill is (rightly) credited to the organized reaction of AM radio listeners. They called and they wrote letters. Apparently, hundreds of thousands got in touch with their senators and said, "Don't do this thing," in as many persuasive ways as they could think of. Almost instantly, the bill died due to lack of R support. It was amazing, truly amazing.

And many have suggested we on the side of the Light and Goodness and America As It Ought To Be should do likewise.

Well. Yes. Indeed. Only we are already doing this; have been for years. And years. In vast numbers. Not just hundreds of thousands. Millions. Calling, writing, faxing, emailing. Constantly. Not always organized reactions, either. Individuals, making their best effort to be heard by elected representatives, in every possible way, are contacting their reps, showing up at constituent meetings, speaking and writing as articulately and passionately as possible.

They are listened to politely. And dismissed.

It's quite a remarkable phenomenon. On many issues, perhaps most, our side contacts reps in greater volume than the Dark Forces of Totalitarian Reaction, more articulately, with far more rigorous facts and figures, more coherent arguments, and more insistence. Routinely, our contacts are ignored or dismissed, as they have been since the 2000 election. Millions of us mass in the streets; we're ignored. Millions call, so many that the switchboards break down. Ignored. Millions write. For all we know letters aren't opened, Anthrax and all that. We fax. Into the shredder. We email. Deleted.

This has been going on for years and years. For some reason, too many of our Representatives in Congress Assembled have decided they don't have to pay attention to the millions advocating on our side, don't have to listen to our anguished pleas to save the Constitution and the Republic, have no obligation to Do The Right Thing when we politely request it of them.

On the other hand, too many of these same Representatives are only too eager to get right on the demands and denunciations coming from the diminishing cohorts of loud and semi-literate right wing wackos. They bend themselves into pretzels to please them.

Why is that?

In my view it's a matter of Perception of Power. Howard Dean made a name for himself at the California Democratic Convention in March 2003 by declaring "You have the Power!" to a very enthusiastic crowd. He fired them up, no doubt about that. I was outside with a few thousand others, marching and carrying signs protesting the the coming invasion of Iraq.

We found to our dismay that we did not have the Power. Other forces, of Darkness and Despair, had the Power, and for all intents and purposes, our votes, our presence in the streets, and our arguments, meant little or nothing to our Representatives in Congress.

For whatever reason, the United States Government was immune to People Power -- from the loose coalition called The Left.

On the other hand, the rigid, spiteful, bloodthirsty, incompetent imperialist coalition of theocrats and corporatists on the Right was accommodated in all things at all times. They had -- and have -- The Power.

We do not.

The right wing radio listeners adapted our tactics on the Immigration Bill and almost instantly got their way. We do the same thing and in greater numbers -- have been for years -- on ending the war or impeachment or preserving the Constitution and Republic and we are ignored. Nearly always.

Media is part of the problem. Corporate control of Congressional and Presidential election financing is part of the problem. The perception that we won't "do" anything about our frustrations is part of the problem.

One reason right wing radio listeners can get their way, while we cannot, is that our representatives are afraid of the (relatively small) masses on the right, and they are not at all afraid of us. We can be dismissed as irrelevant (or wrong) and there are no serious repercussions to our reps.