Lefties Drooling Over the Impeachment of Cheney

John Nichols of the lefty blog at The Nation is practically wetting himself over the prospect of Dennis "Spaceman" Kucinich' effort to impeach Dick Cheney. In his view the real fault for a previous lack of impeachment activity belongs to the media:

Broadcast media's gate-keeping "stars" have done just about everything in their power to keep the matter of presidential accountability off the radar of the American people. That was evident during the most recent Democratic presidential debate, when NBC anchors Brian Williams and Tim Russert meticulously avoided following up on Congressman Dennis Kucinich's three references to impeachment but somehow found time to grill the contenders on UFOs and what costume Barack Obama would be wearing on Halloween.

The reason Russert and Williams ignored Kucinich's pleas for impeachment is because he's a nut and has no chance of succeeding. However, those facts don't matter to Nichols. He's got a poll that say people are anxiously awaiting the opportunity to impeach Bush/Cheney:

A fresh poll conducted for Vermont's WCAX television station finds that citizens of that state enthusiastically believe that Congress beginning impeachment proceedings against President Bush.

Sixty-one percent of the Vermonters surveyed favor taking steps to impeach the president, while just 33% oppose doing so.

The numbers are even higher for impeaching Cheney. Sixty-four percent of Vermonters favor beginning the process of holding the vice president to account, where only 31 percent are opposed.

Vermonters are the same folks who elected ultra-lib Pat Leahy and socialist Bernie Sanders to the Senate. Asking them for an opinion of the Bush administration is like asking Red Sox fans for an opinion of the Yankees. You're not going to get a very balanced response.

The biggest problem with this whole thing, that neither Kucinich nor Nichols dare to address, is the fact that the Vice President has no real powers except those granted by the president. Even if you think Cheney has been pushing wrong or dangerous policies, offering bad advice is not an impeachable offense. Cheney has no real power to enact his ideas or force the president or the military to follow his commands. He's pretty much impeachment-proof.

If there are any wiser heads among the Dem congressional leadership, they'll kill this thing as quickly as they can. Otherwise it will take over the agenda in the House and derail anything Pelosi and Hoyer are trying to get done that will actually bring them credit rather than scorn.