Almost every time House Speaker Nancy Pelosi explains why she won't impeach Bush or Cheney she says that the Republicans want impeachment and that therefore she must oppose it.
She originally took impeachment "off the table" in response to a May 2006 Republican National Committee announcement that (contrary to all existing evidence) talk of impeachment would benefit Republicans in the November 2006 elections. (In fact polls showed a majority believing that electing Democrats would mean impeachment, and we elected 30 new Democrats and not a single new Republican.)
Pelosi made the same claim in this week's Time Magazine:
"I think the Republicans would like nothing better than for us to focus on impeachment and take our eye off the ball of a progressive economic agenda."
She also made the same claim in this week's Nation Magazine:
"You know who wanted us to impeach the President...it was the Republicans."
Over and over again she argues that the Republicans want impeachment.
Turns out the speaker hasn't checked her facts. I just phoned the RNC to ask whether they support impeachment, and they told me they definitely do not. Here's the audio. Do you suppose that if Pelosi finds out about this she'll put impeachment back in our Constitution?
