Impeachment back on the table?

"...and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

- from the Oath of Office of the President of the United States of Amerca

George W. Bush's failure to live up to this simple oath is one of the reasons Rep. Dennis Kucinich introduced a single article of impeachment in the House this week, accusing him of deceiving Congress to convince lawmakers to authorize his invasion of Iraq more than five years ago.



The video is a little hard to hear, but the first minute or two has most of the good stuff in it.

Kucinich, who originally had a 35-article impeachment resolution, decided that a single article would be easier for Congress to deal with, and will essentially do what the 35-count charge would do. The point of which, if you haven't been paying attention, is NOT to remove the President from office. It's too late in his term to expect any possibility of that happening with the inevitably slow machinations of the impeachment process.

No, what the impeachment process does is give Congress the power of the subpoena and the ability to compel the President and his men to testify under oath. The threat of perjury charges will serve to reveal the truth about the crimes that have been committed in the White House during and after the long run up to the war, and it will lay the groundwork for future criminal prosecutions of the parties responsible for lying to the American people and betraying the Constitution.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday discussed the impeachment article, and I am stunned to hear this from her:

"This is a Judiciary Committee matter, and I believe we will see some attention being paid to it by the Judiciary Committee," Pelosi told reporters. "Not necessarily taking up the articles of impeachment because that would have to be approved on the floor, but to have some hearings on the subject."

Pelosi added: "My expectation is that there will be some review of that in the committee."

Great Caesar's Ghost! Could it be that Ms. Pelosi has actually begun to develop a spine?

Is she really saying that she might not encourage the Judiciary Committee to sit on their hands in regards to impeachment? Yes Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus, and he just brought you a table for you to set your impeachment upon!

True, it's a tiny little rickety card table with short legs and barely enough room for you to play a nice game of Scrabble upon, but it's a table all the same. A big sturdy mahogany conference room table with plenty of room for the committee members to spread out all the papers needed to enact the impeachment inquiry would be better, but I'll settle for what we got.

Who knows? Maybe it's all just a load of bunk, and all Nance is doing is throwing a bone to us (and by "us", I mean "Constitution-loving American Patriots") and she'll do nothing more to move this thing along. We'll have to wait and see what happens next.