Impeachment: The Dumbest Move the Dems Could Make

Over at BlueOregon there seems to be a yelling match as to whether enough is being down to impeach Bush. Personally, I think the conversation has gotten a bit harsh with some shrieking (as Kari termed it) impeachment or else.

What is really funny, is that after I added my most recent comments I went over to Wikipedia and found the article about Movement to Impeach George W. Bush. In the Wikipedia article there was a quote from a recent article by Micheal Tomsky in the Washington Post. He makes some of the same observations I made over at BlueOregon as well as some other good points against impeaching Bush.

Specifically Tomsky says:

There's little disagreement among liberals about the substance. If any administration since President Richard M. Nixon's has committed high crimes and misdemeanors, surely it's this one; if lying about consensual sexual activity fit the bill, then surely lying about the reason for a war does, too. As Dave Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky argue in their indignant book "The Case for Impeachment," the bill of indictment goes far beyond Bush's grave lies about Iraq. There's also the arrest and detention without trial of U.S. citizens, the violation of international treaties such as the Geneva Conventions at the prisons at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the "blatant violation" of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Fourth Amendment "by secretly authorizing secret warrantless spying on thousands of American citizens by the National Security Agency."

The political case, though, is another question entirely. Impeachment is not merely a bad idea, but the single worst course of action that Democrats could possibly undertake -- the only thing they could do that might, in one stroke, convert Bush from the figure of contempt and mockery he is now into one of vague sympathy. Just as bad, it's the one move that would definitively alienate nonideological voters and, therefore, harm the Democrats' otherwise excellent chances for winning congressional seats and the White House in 2008. And that's just what impeachment would do to the Democrats. Even worse is what it would do to liberalism and to the country.

You don't have to be as expert a nose counter as Lyndon B. Johnson to know that impeachment wouldn't succeed. You'd have to get both Bush and Cheney to make any difference, which makes it a heavier lift. Even if the articles of impeachment somehow got through the House -- a stretch, because 61 Democrats represent nominally "red" districts and thus may feel compelled to vote nay -- conviction would require 67 votes in the Senate. That means at least 18 Republicans would have to vote to remove a Republican president and vice president. (I'm assuming that Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent, would vote no.) Of course, new bombshells could change all that. But for now, impeachment advocates are urging Democrats to start a fight they'd lose.

This is precisely why I think censuring both Bush and Cheney is a much better option, along with de-funding the war and bring the troops home. By doing these two things it essentially knocks the legs from underneath this administration. Yes, it leaves them in office, but with a very weak president and vice-president. It also makes sure (as the diehard impeachment movement states) that future administrations will realize that they can't pull the same crap.

It also may force Bush to do negotiate on issues that his administration has taken a "our way or the highway" attitude toward (tax cuts, health care, etc.). It would also do more to expose the evils of the Bush Administration to those who are apathetic and hopefully cause more people to be involved in the election next year.

So my question is this: Why is impeachment the only being touted as the only option?