Both seem to me to be ducking the issue, but that's perhaps because I view impeachment as a constitutional necessity, as opposed to an electoral strategy. To be sure, they are both bound up inextricably, but there's no doubting that there are those who view one or the other as having primacy.

But in particular, I reject the first because it assumes that a successful impeachment effort would, for some strange reason, ignore Dick Cheney's extraordinarily active role in the administration in general, and in the activities most likely to bear impeachment charges in particular. I simply can't imagine a universe in which an investigation thorough enough to convince the Congress that Bush's removal from office is necessary doesn't also convince them that Cheney's removal is equally necessary, and perhaps moreso.

The prospect of a Hastert presidency, given that it only comes to pass if Congress is shamed into impeaching the entire Bush administration, frankly doesn't scare me much. A hobbled and chastened President Hastert, presiding over a Congress so ashamed of Republican wrongdoing that they've installed him in place of Bush and Cheney? OK, sure. I'll take two!

I reject the second objection as a matter of logistics and timing, as well as for reasons of electoral strategy. I find little to recommend the notion, for instance, that Democrats should somehow "hide the ball" with respect to impeachment, only pulling it out from their sleeve after elected to office. "Surprise! We campaigned on jobs and health care, but instead we're going to impeach the Bush administration!" That's a recipe for the very backlash everyone fears.

I also think that waiting to get the ball rolling fritters away crucial time that's needed to lay the foundation and groundwork necessary for a successful impeachment effort. While I agree that the odds of getting a better whip count may increase after the November elections, I do not agree that we have  time to wait until January of next year to even begin discussing the prospect. Impeachment can be a slow train, and the truth is that January 2007 begins the always-shorter-than-it-seems countdown to November 2008. And that brings with it the greatest danger to public support for impeachment: the notion that if we just close our eyes and hang on a little longer, it will all go away. Bush's term will end, and "for the good of the country," we ought to just let him go.

But that, I think, is what has landed us here in the first place.

We are where we are today for lack of having drawn a line at Watergate, then again at Iran-Contra. The same perpetrators -- and in many cases they really are the very same perpetrators -- are back for a third bite at the apple, and will be back for a fourth if they don't get what's coming to them. Remember, impeachment isn't just for presidents. It's for all "civil officers," as RonK, Seattle ably reminded us.:

Impeachment is not just for Presidents.
Article II, Section 4 renders "The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States" susceptible to impeachment.

Who are these civil officers? An early precedent excludes Members of Congress -- removable by their own respective bodies. Past practice affirmatively includes judges and cabinet officials. And there's a sturdy originalist case for stretching this envelope.

Would a subcabinet official -- like former Asst. Sec. of State Elliott Abrams -- qualify? How about a "Senior Administration Official" who does not require Senate confirmation -- like Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Scooter Libby? Is an independent agency head -- like CPB's Kenneth Tomlinson -- a qualified "civil officer"?

But that wasn't all Ron told us. We also learned that the Constitution bars both future eligibility for high office and presidential pardons in the case of impeachment. Given that many of the very same people have been at the heart of the last two rounds of Constitution-shredding, I would urge early and clear action. How many more chances do you want to give John Poindexter? Elliot Abrams?

So that's another reason I reject the "cross your fingers and wait" option. We've tried that before. We let Nixon walk away rather than finish the job. And while it's hard to blame anyone for believing at that time that nothing like this would ever happen again, we do have to take a second or third look at whether or not the consequences of declining to press the Watergate inquiries to their natural conclusion have emboldened those who would seek to undo the very reforms those inquiries engendered.

By the time Iran-Contra rolled around, while we didn't do any better in terms of impeachment, we were able to put together some high profile convictions, only to see them reversed, or the perpetrators receive pardons -- something RonK's reminder renders a glaring mistake in hindsight.

Instead of having demonstrated the awesome and shaming power of impeachment, we have twice given in to our softer side and opted to "heal the nation's wounds," only to find that they've instead festered and turned gangrenous.

In fact, I believe that this double failure left open an opportunity -- and an extraordinarily cynical one at that -- for Republicans to both undo what shame lingered, and to transfer that shame onto Democrats, with the Clinton impeachment. But more dangerous (and more cynical) still, I believe now -- more strongly than I did in May -- that the Republicans behind the Clinton impeachment may have had a longer-term plan in mind for an impeachment even they knew to be doomed. A plan which I'll elaborate on in the next entry, and which constitutes my next major argument for the necessity of impeachment.