Impeachment: Is This Word in Your Lexicon?

While I've been quiet on the blog this weekend, I have made some time for reading, and among the sites I've visited were a few relatively to quite aggressively conservative sites. Even among a few of them, I've read some discussion of whether - if the Downing Street Memo and its aftermath rises to the level where we should consider impeachment.

Obviously, impeachment is not an issue to be taken lightly. We've only impeached two presidents in our relatively young history and both of them can be argued to be more political in nature than a reflection of crimes rising to the level of significantly against national interests. Both of those presidents - and I will note that my ancestor as chief justice of the Supremes then presided over the impeachment trial of Johnson (Andrew, not Lyndon) - actually served out their tenure.

To me, there has been a case for impeachment since 9/12/01 with the president's severe failure, as commander in briefs, to respond appropriately. But there have also been so many issues since then, not the least of which is the apparent falsification of reasons taking us into Iraq. If anything, I'm in disbelief that the word has not come up many times before.

If this were any other president - Democratic or otherwise - impeachment would have already been discussed. Only because of the threat from "outside sources" has this president been given both enormous free reign and a general stifling of opposition opinion. Yet haven't we reached - hell, even passed perhaps 2-3 years ago - the point where this man's actions are deliberately and systematically making us less safe from outside threats? And aside from these threats, hasn't his administration left our country bankrupt in so many key areas? In the face of rising debt, the first words on this man's lips are always "tax cuts for the wealthy".

How do you folks feel about all of this? Do you see cause for impeachment? If so, at what point did you decide this? Recently or going back some period of time ago? If not, why not?

Even if we did successfully initiate impeachment proceedings against Mr. Bush, would it do anything? I doubt we'd get him out of office.