We don't have the votes Proponents of impeachment often frame it as a moral imperative. "President Bush is destroying our country", the thinking goes "he must be removed." Let's accept that as true. Let's say that the proper moral action is to remove the President from power (for what isn't exactly clear, but we'll discuss that down below). Let's all agree, for the sake of argument if nothing else, that impeachment and conviction absolutely need to happen. There's still one giant, overwhelming problem, that people need to face up to; they're not going to. We don't have the votes, and nothing short of the rosiest pair of rosy glasses ever created can construct a scenario where we get the votes.
Impeachment, as everyone knows, requires a vote of the majority of the House. With Dems now in control, and in control of committees to launch investigations, impeachment itself is at least theoretically possible. Chairman Conyers can launch investigations into...something (wiretapping, torture, falsified intelligence), and the President can be impeached. Getting the votes of the Blue Dogs, of moderate Dems, of newly elected freshmen from red districts will be incredibly difficult, but we'll stipulate that it's at least possible.
So let's say the President is impeached. His trial is conducted by the Senate, and here we run into a roadblock that no one has adequately responded to. Conviction in the Senate requires 67 votes. Once again, for the sake of argument, we'll assume that every Dem votes to convict. This is beyond unlikely in a Senate that includes Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, and Mary Landrieu desperate to keep her job, but we'll assume it. That gives Democrats 51 votes to convict. They need sixteen Republicans Sixteen! We could only get 5 to invoke cloture on a minimum wage bill, yet we're expecting to pull 16 stray sheep to indict the standard bearer of their party. Here's a list of the current U.S. Senators. Find me 16 Republicans you think we can convince to vote to convict President Bush, no matter what the crime is. Hell, find me 5. Maybe Olympia Snowe. Maybe. But not 16.
So whatever the moral force of the arguments for impeachment, the practical realities force us to realize that removing President Bush from office is more or less a pipe dream. That's why much of the discussion of impeachment has a distinct "underpants gnomes" quality to it.
Step 1: impeach
Step 2:
Step 3: Profit
It's because there's no step 2 that can pull it off with this group of Senators.
2. Failed impeachment has consequences
As I wrote in the "Lessons From the Clinton Impeachment" diary linked to above, impeachment isn't a cost-free course. Impeaching Clinton killed Republicans, leading to an unprecedented loss in the 1998 midterms (literally; no party had gained seats in the 6th year of their Presidency since the Civil War), and it raised President Clinton's approval rating into the stratosphere. Yes, there are crucial, crucial, differences between President Clinton's situation and the one in front of us now. President Clinton was impeached for lying about oral sex. President Bush would presumably be impeached for something the American Public regarded as more serious. But that doesn't necessarily change the calculus.
Impeachment is damn drastic, and it's viewed as such by the public. You better have something they agree is worthy of the action (we'll discuss that next), and you sure as hell better win. That's what the Lieberman-Lamont primary taught us this cycle as well; if you're going to go after the big dog, you better get him, or you're gonna pay the price. This Congress has gotten off to a fantastic start, and the public has recognized it. Speaker Pelosi's approval ratings currently sit at 51%, and Congressional approval ratings are ticking upwards. That's because Congress is doing a good job, and they're doing what they were elected to do. They're raising the minimum wage, enacting the 9/11 commission recommendations, cutting student loans. All of these measures have high public support. Launching a highly risky impeachment proceeding of questionable popularity (has the question ever been asked in a non "if-then" construct in a poll?) against a president who is out of there in 2 years can screw up this agenda and screw up 2008. And, as mentioned before, it's not gonna work anyway.
3. It's not clear what to impeach him for
I know, I know, that heading looks ridiculous. This President has engaged in illegal wiretapping and torture. His administration leaked the name of a covert CIA agent. He launched a disastrous war based on faulty premises. That's all true, and none of it may matter. Impeachment has 2 components; legal, and public relations. Each is crucial, and all the proposed methods fail on one or the other.
The legal requirement is set up in the Constitution, which says impeachment is for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." Now, it's true that "high crimes and misdemeanors" means pretty much whatever Congress says it does (hence the Clinton impeachment). You can impeach the president for not eating a Grapefruit the right way. But it's not going to go over well. To succeed, you'll need actual crimes that the public will get on board with. And that'll be a problem. You see, many of the potential grounds for impeachment, torture, wiretapping, spying, are things the public doesn't necessarily have a problem with.
In late 2005, an MSNBC poll found that