...right now.
A lot of people are rightly passionate about whether the current occupants of the White House should be impeached. The question of whether or not Bush and Cheney deserve to be impeached is beyond settled; the crimes that they have committed against America are unquestionable, and they are far more serious than anything Bill Clinton ever did when he was impeached for what amounted to little more than lying about his extramarital dalliances.
In an ideal world, Bush and Cheney's impeachment would be the first order of business when the 110th Congress convenes on January 4, 2007. But we do not live in an ideal world, and we cannot impeach them because the process isn't about justice. It's about politics.
Andrew Johnson came within one vote of being removed from office in 1868 due to what amounted to a grudge that radical Republicans held against the Johnson, a pro-Union Democrat who was not being as tough on the South as they believed he should be. The only president since then to face the near-certainty of removal from office via impeachment was Richard Nixon. In examining the potential for impeachment, it's important to evaluate the charges that were passed by the House Judiciary Committee in the summer of 1974. Although one Article (the third Article of Impeachment - being in contempt of Congress) was passed largely along party lines, the first two Articles had fairly broad bipartisan support. Aside from the 21 Democrats on the committee, 6 Republicans on the first Article, and 7 Republicans on the second Article, voted with Democrats to remove Nixon from office. However, after the 'smoking gun' tape was released after the vote, all the House Judiciary Republicans said they would vote to impeach, and removal from office became a foregone conclusion in the Senate.
So why do I bring Nixon up? The reason is because Nixon's impeachment did not stem from a defined goal of impeaching him. Instead, it resulted as a natural effect of the investigation into the Watergate scandal. As more information came out, it became even more indefensible for the Nixon administration to rationalize the cover-up that had occurred. Once the evidence clearly showed that Nixon was guilty, his own party deserted him, leaving him with no choice but to resign from office or be publicly humiliated with removal from office. We haven't even taken power yet in Congress. What we need to do is let our committee chairpersons do the oversight that has for so long been ignored. Let John Conyers, Harry Waxman, and others find out exactly what has been happening. Most of us would probably support impeachment on some variation of the claim that Bush purposefully lied and manipulated intelligence during the run-up to the war in Iraq. If there's clear evidence that states as much, the ball will begin rolling. But until there is a blatant, documented abuse of power that cannot be justified in any manner - such as the Nixon tapes - it will be extremely difficult to forge the necessary bipartisan consensus on impeachment.
This leads me to the second point, which should be clear to everyone here: we do not have the votes to remove Bush from office. With a 30-seat advantage and the majority in the Judiciary Committee, it's likely that we could at least pass a couple of articles of impeachment through the House. But this completely ignores the Senate, where we have a narrow 51-49 majority (with two independents caucusing with us). In 1974, before the midterm elections, Democrats held 57 seats (with one independent), meaning that only 10 senators needed to be flipped. With a much larger number of moderate Republicans in the Senate back then, such a task would not be a big deal. In the present, we would need to flip 16 senators to convict. Considering that the number of so-called 'moderate' Republicans in the present is very small in the present - Specter, Collins, Snowe, and Voinovich are the only ones that come to mind right now, and they're not even that moderate - we still fall way short of the required number. In short, it would have to take a monumental disclosure to flip what would amount to 1/3 of the Republican caucus. Considering how GOP senators are far-right wingnuts, it's virtually unlikely we could flip that many.
There will be purists who argue that we should impeach Bush and Cheney merely on the principle of the matter. If there would be no political repurcussions for doing so, then I'd be full-heartedly behind it. That being said, Congress' constituents - the people of America - aren't sure about the measure, much less Democrats as a whole. In a poll before the midterm elections this year, it's true that a majority of Americans - again, by the slimmest of majorities, 51% - think that impeachment should be a priority. But less than half of Democrats (47%) believe it should be the top priority, while 20% of the GOP thinks it should be a priority at all.
I don't agree with the reasoning that impeachment is not important when we could be addressing policy issues that will affect everyday Americans. The Bush administration affects us for every extra day we're stuck in Iraq. But impeachment and removal is not going to happen right now. Let the hearings begin, and if a 'smoking gun' is found, then perhaps we can begin serious discussion of impeachment. But until we can convince a majority of Democrats that it should be the top priority, along with convincing independents and Republicans that it is important to impeach, the option is dead in the water...
...for now.