Impeachment Talk Increasing

Steve Benen at TPM comments on the batch of recent polls, and notes that the idea of impeaching Bush is gaining public support. Steve mistakenly worries about Cheney succeeding Bush, which might be a concern if Cheney weren't in the position of likely being impeached as well himself. It's getting the 2/3 vote in the Senate, of course, which is the major obstacle, and which has led Democrats like Nancy Pelosi to rule out the possibility of impeachment as a viable proposition in the first place. But gaining enough Republican votes is quite possible if public pressure obliges. And that public pressure is building. Plus Democrats could grease the skids by dealing up front to make sure that, instead of Democrat Speaker Pelosi following in the order of succession, a Republican - say, for example, Thad Cochran - were to replace Cheney first as VP, and then to succeed Bush in the Oval Office when he's impeached and convicted. Republicans would get to enjoy a conservative Republican finishing the term in the White House, and they would have eliminated the preponderance of electoral burden that both Bush and Cheney currently have hung around GOP necks. Moreover, Republicans would be able to brag about how honorable they were for eons, having sacrificed their own for the good of the country. And the beauty for Republicans would be that even if dumping Bush and Cheney were a totally cynical move, it would - and should - still legitimately win accolades as a sacrifice to benefit the public. It would, naturally, be shocking if Republicans actually adopted this thinking. They are, collectively, just too stupid to realize how well it would serve their party interests to take it upon themselves to get rid of Bush and Cheney. The GOP pinheads who orchestrated the Terry Schiavo imbecility plainly suffer a form of brain death themselves. But for precisely the same reason that the U.S. must depart from the Iraq failure in order to begin regaining it's once-respected reputation in the world, the Republicans could begin to rebuild electoral constituencies and win back voters if the party withdraws its support for the Bush/Cheney failures and joins with Democrats in removing the two of them from office.