OK, as I understand it, assuming that the Dems retake both the House and Senate, the biggest obstacle to impeaching Bush & Cheney--aside from the fact that there's a mountain of their messes to clean up first--is that if they do so, Nancy Pelosi would then become President. While most of the country hates Bush & Cheney these days, and would be OK "in theory" with impeachment, actually going through with it would cause a lot of people to get cold feet for a variety of reasons: it'd be "a distraction from other important issues"; it'd be "just the Dems getting revenge for Clinton", etc etc. More importantly, Pelosi becoming Prez would make the GOP--and, supposedly, many indys & moderates--go absolutely apeshit (no matter how much the indys hate Bush). Bottom line, the theory here is that as much as Bush & Cheney deserve impeachment, actually doing so would cause the Dems' control of Congress to be extremely short-lived (as in, only 2 years) before the backlash caused the GOP to re-take it once again in '08.
At least, this is what I've gotten out of the various discussions of this possibility and why it'd be a "bad idea" even if it could be done.
There's one factor that people seem to forget about, however: It's already October 2006. Bush will only be in office another 2 1/4 years anyway. If they retake Congress, the Dems wouldn't actually have control until January 2007 (less than 2 years left in Bush's term). How long did the Nixon hearings take from start to finish? How about the Clinton impeachment? Assume that from start to finish, 3-4 months. I could easily see them not even being able to start on impeachment hearings--even if it was a top priority--until at least June 2007...less than 1 1/2 years before Bush's second term ends anyway.
My point is this: What if Pelosi & Co. decided to go ahead and impeach Bush--but timed it so that the actual votes came during Bush's final days in office (most importantly, after the 2008 election)? It would amount to an effectively "symbolic" impeachment--Bush would be removed from office only a week or two before he'd leave office anyway--and Pelosi would officially be President for a whopping 10 days or so, basically just holding down the fort until President Feingold (or McCain, or whoever the hell wins in 08) took over. I presume that the only real-world impact on Bush/Cheney would be embarassment and losing their Presidential Pension (or whatever other perks-for-life they'd normally be entitled to?) This would suck, since they really deserve jail time IMHO, but it'd be something, I suppose...
Whaddya think? Stupid beyond belief? Brilliant beyond belief?
CLARIFICATION: Yes, I realize this is never going to happen. I just think it'd be an interesting scenario which could feasibly take place--if we had any chance of getting over a dozen Republican Senators to go along with it, which would never happen. So...nebbermind (sigh)...