Folks, impeachment isn't going to happen

[bluestateguy]

And I'll tell you why.

When Richard Nixon was president much of the Washington establishment was liberal and/or Democratic. The bureaucracy, the courts and the Congress were all controlled by liberals and/or Democrats. The news media was a lot more adversarial to people in power (after having been lied to in Vietnam). We also didn't have a well organized religious right back then. In short, the dominant governing regime of the time was liberal and/or Democratic. Nixon was playing ball in the opposing team's stadium, which might explain why he gave us OSHA, the EPA, the Endangered Species Act and supported affirmative action. On domestic policy, he leaned left because that was the still the dominant mode of governing in the late 1960's and early 1970's.

Bush does not face this dilemma. For Bush, the bulk of the Washington establishment is conservative and/or Republican, and the news media is much more concentrated and more corporate than it was 30 years ago. The right's noise machine is a lot more powerful now than it was 30 years ago. He's playing ball in his home ballpark, even if he's losing the game.

So what if the Democrats win control of both houses of Congress? The likelihood of this is small, but even if it does happen, their majority will likely be small in Congress. There will be enough DLC/Vichy Democrats who won't have the stomach for impeachment and will wimp out. And if they started the impeachment process the corporate media would be bitching and moaning loudly, as would the right wing noise machine, and the noise would be deafening. This would cause impeachment to fizzle.

The best thing we can do is to work to weaken Bush politically. To expedite his lame duckerry and shrink his presidency to a point where his political clout is weakened in the Washington community. Then his bills won't get considered in Congress and he will further lose control of the American political agenda.