A simple thought, re: impeachment.
The Bush Admin. collectively was at war with Iraq even before they were elected. Once they had (illegitimately) ascended to power, they decided to destroy as much of it as they could, for reasons that historians will have to sort out.
Then-chief of staff Andy Card famously blurted out that "from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August," which I was thinking about just now and it nicely dovetails with the recent, sudden explosion of the US Atty scandal....
If the Iraq war was made easier to "sell" to the American public because they were familiar with the brand, perhaps impeachment could be likewise "sold" to a public that is as angry with the Administration now as it was shamefully credulous in 2003.
I am not, and never will be, Bill Clinton's biggest fan. I have many criticisms of the man, including corporate deregulation (specifically in the energy industry and in the media), the DMCA, the DOMA, don't ask don't tell, etc. But the 1998 impeachment proceedings were a farce, and everyone involved knew it. It was elaborate political theater, stemming from the investigation of a land deal Starr proved the Clintons lost money on. Then somehow it became about any and every accusation made against Clinton, none of which were based in fact, until they hit on Monica.
Way to go.
So the president, long since having beaten off the Whitewater charges, has to testify (under oath, which the Bushies just told Congress they wouldn't do!) about his sex life, and not anything that had a damn thing to do with his job.
Which brings me to the branding part....the Republicans saw Clinton as revenge for what happened to Nixon (and probably Reagan, too), even though Nixon was so obviously, screamingly guilty of all of it he practically had a cartoon cloud hovering over him at all times after 1968. Reagan was pretty obviously guilty too. Clinton? I'm willing to concede Clinton may have done some stuff we don't know about, I don't think the guy's a saint by any measure. Nixon lied about firing prosecutors, ordering burglaries, wartime machinations, all sorts of shit. Reagan (or his people, anyway) lied to Congress about violating both the spirit and the letter of a whole bunch of different laws, and those pencilnecks all got off on technicalities, even though they did everything (and more) that they were accused of. And fuck me if people like Liddy and Colson aren't running around, pretending to be respectable citizens instead of the felons they are.
Against the backdrop of all this, we have George Bush firing prosecutors investigating Republicans and hoping no one would notice. That obviously didn't work out. Now he seems to think Congress is just going to roll over about subpoenas. I doubt it. He's challenged not just the Democrats but the Republicans in Congress, saying essentially that they have no authority over him.
I think the thing to do is present Watergate, Iran-Contra, and all the many colors of the Bush rainbow of scandal as all symptoms of the same syndrome: the unitary executive.
This theory has to be attacked, head-on, by Congress. The way for them to do this is to impeach George Bush, Dick Cheney, and all of their subordinates. This matter clearly cannot be solved anywhere else but in Congress, with the Supreme Court presiding.
And before we get all puckered up thinking about the makeup of the SCOTUS, I think Roberts has been a hell of a lot more moderate than anybody expected him to be so far, which is a relief....truth be told, I don't recall getting especially bent out of shape over anything Alito did, although I'm sure that's just because I haven't heard of them. I suspect we'd get a much better hearing with Roberts than with Rehnquist--Roberts wasn't part of the Bush v. Gore court.
The idea that "executive privilege" can be invoked any time the president feels like it to deflect investigations needs to die a bloody, screaming, public death. On TV. And I think it's an argument that the judiciary, in the form of the SC might be receptive to.
So based on the pitching of the second Iraq Attaq, I think we might be able to pull off the impeachment thing. It'd be the fourth (count em!) run at impeachment in the last 40 years, but what the hell? We promise this time it'll be better....
(P.S. this diary is dedicated to the memory of billmon.org, which it is somewhat in the spirit of....)