If this story is true, John Kerry is about to make a bigger ass of himself than one would have previously thought possible (even by someone who remembers last year's campaign), by feeding the fantasy of some in the Democrat Party that George Bush can be impeached and removed.

Obviously, to some degree, this is payback for the strange perception that Bill Clinton was unjustly impugned, but really--one would almost think that the Senator imagines that if Bush were removed from office, that somehow he'll become president.

The reality, of course, is that if by some miracle, a Republican House would impeach the president, and a Republican Senate would muster a two-thirds majority to remove him, Dick Cheney would become president. Is that what they want?

Perhaps they continue to indulge their wet dream to the point of imagining that they'd both be impeached and removed simultaneously. Well, that would result in a President Hastert. And if they imagine that it would be first Bush, then Cheney, then Cheney would first appoint a new (unelected) veep, who would have to be approved by the Congress (still Republican controlled, remember), who would then become president after Cheney's removal (as Gerald Ford did when Nixon resigned). Do they imagine that Mr. Cheney would select, and Congress approve, a Democrat?

This is parallel with the same delusions that they demonstrated during the Clinton impeachment, when they talked about it as a "coup," as though Bob Dole would become president if Clinton was removed, instead of Al Gore. In fact, to me that was always the strongest argument for the case--if it were merely political, why would the Republicans who favored removal want to put the squeaky-clean Al Gore into the Oval Office, from which he'd almost certainly win reelection in 2000 as an incumbent? The only reasonable explanation is that they sincerely thought that we had a corrupt and criminal president (which we in fact did).

Similarly, the Dems were foolish to oppose it, because it would have probably cemented their hold on the White House for at least another five years, while removing the taint of Clinton from their party. I know that I'd be much more inclined to vote for them now if they'd demonstrated the slightest shred of outrage (let alone integrity) over the indecent and corrupt behavior of the Clintons on a wide range of fronts, from Travelgate to Chinagate, to the harassment of women. By their actions they've forfeited support from me, probably for a lifetime.

The Democrats seem to have totally lost sight of the purpose of impeachment, which is to remove a president who is a danger to the office and the country, not to provide a shift in political power from one party to another.

In any event, get real, folks. Only two presidents have been impeached in the nation's history (Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton), and only one seriously threatened with it (Nixon, who resigned before the vote was taken).

In all three cases the Congress was of a different party than the president (Johnson, though he ran with Lincoln, was a member of the National Union Party, which had little in common with the Radical Republicans who took over after Lincoln's assassination, other than a desire to keep the union together). Democrat Clinton was impeached by a Republican Congress. Republican Nixon, had he not resigned, likely would have been impeached, by a Democrat Congress.

Who in their right mind thinks that Republican (at least in name) George Bush is going to be impeached by a Republican (again, at least in name) Congress? Key words in the previous sentence are, of course, "in their right mind..."

[Update at 4 PM EDT]

You can't imagine how shocked I am to read that Al Jazeera is all over this story. We'll see how much (and how credulously) it's covered by the MSM.

The Democrats have been using impeachment, or the threat of it, as a political tool for years. Some Democrat tried to start impeachment proceedings against Bush in the first term. They know it doesn't have a chance in hell of succeeding, but the 'impeach' word is so strong that if they can associate it with the president they can make him look bad. It's all about throwing whatever they can, hoping something will stick.

Rand, this is one of the reasons many of us call them Dim-o-cRats.

I didn't think sKerry could make himself any more irrelevant and assinine, but apparently I was wrong.

Lurch, by all means go for it!

Just when a lot of voters were starting to shy away from the President vis a vis Terry Schiavo and stem cells, those Democrats give people a reason to rally around the chief executive. The Democrats must have absorbed "The Galatic Emporer's school of persuasion" from The return of the Jedi.

Democratic Rep. Conyers said "We will treat any information provided on this site as confidential."

He can't be that stupid to expect anyone to believe that pile of crap, can he?

I lean more towards "they're serious about impeacement and completely deluded that it has a chance", but is it possible that the Democrats pushing the issue are well aware that it won't happen? That they are doing it in spite of this?

If they bring it up and it makes a big media splash yet goes nowhere in the House, they can claim in 2006 that Bush would have been impeached had it not been for the Republicans using their control of the House to protect him. Since the criminality and corruption of Bush would be (are already?) an unquestioned fact among the target audience, this linkage would "prove" that the House Republicans are just as corrupt as he and in need of replacement themselves.

On the other hand, this may give the Democrats too much credit for cleverness and the ability to form and execute a long-term strategy -- neither of which are in evidence among the party leaders at the moment.

Well, it would be wise to remember that President Bush not Kerry or US Congress is responsible for the accuracy and utility of US intelligence. In the period leading up to the Iraqi Invasion, US intelligence failed in a spectacular way, a way that directly benefited Bush's needs of the moment.

Frankly, the Republican party does have a weakness here in the underhanded way that President Bush justified the war on Iraq and the clumsy, incompetent attempts afterwards to rebuild Iraq.

I think T. L. James is correct in that the Democrat party will attempt to use this issue (and this is probably the only reason they brought it up) to gain vote share in the 2006 election. If they were a competent party, they probably would have succeeded in this task, having first won the presidential election in 2004.

I predict Kerry will call for a special prosecutor to investigate whether anyone in the Bush Administration lied about Saddam's WMD programs.

Nothing more than that.

I have followed politics fairly closely for the last 30 years and I cannot remember the minority party making a more hostile, concerted effort to malign and discredit the President without ANY evidence of any wrongdoing. Nixon and Clinton don't count because of the evidence available before talk of impeachment. I think the Dems are so obsessed with this they are allowing the business of the nation to suffer and they will pay a price at the polls in 2006.

This is just funny.

That's hilarious, Karl.
Thank God for people like you. Without them, we might have President Kerry now.

It's a sad effect of the endless campaign. Political posturing to generate headlines for political effect. This time it's the Dems, next time will be the GOP.

This is nothing more than the moderen democratic party continuing their slow, ongoing suicide.

If they want to go to Hell in a Handbasket, tell me where I can chip in on a new Donkeyroaster 3000 to get them there quicker.