Nancy Pelosi got the message so hard that she has bent over backward to let everyone know that "Impeachment is off the table."
Harry Reid got the message so confidently that he seems unfazed by the fact that his Dem-dominant Senate actually hangs on the balance of a maybe-with-us, maybe-not, brain-damaged Tim Johnson of South Dakota.
Both of those leadership figures seem so blissed out by their sudden change of fortunes (seemingly) that they've been doing curtseys to demonstrate their grace to a DISgraced power structure that didn't know what was expected of power when they had it.
It is all talk, so far . . . though it is NOT talk about impeachment, which should be the topic of the day.
Why? Because in point of clear fact, the Democrats have no power against a renegade, war-empowered administration that refuses to heed the message that everyone else seems to have gotten, on November 7th.
Bush is clearly determined to ram his plans through, in the pursuit of a dreamed-of victory in Iraq, come hell or high Congress. The ONLY card that Congress can legitimately play, against his dog-headedness, is the impeachment card.
This is precisely what that playing card is for, and the means are at hand to accomplish it. Everyone knows, very well, that Bush has been guilty of crimes for which he can be tried and impeached. It's quite true that we have no way of being sure that an impeachment will follow the trial . . . but isn't that what a trial is all about? We'll know when we get there. But we shall NEVER know if we don't get there.
Are trials normally avoided because we cannot be sure of guilt in advance?
What a quaint notion that is!
WE KNOW WHERE BUSH IS GOING, IF HE IS NOT IMPEACHED.
And from my perspective, that is precisely reason enough to pursue the impeachment.