I 'm suggesting we concentrate on winning in 08 so we can get the troops out once and for all

I disagree that conducting investigations into impeachment is looking back. Hardly. It's precisely about the future: preventing future leaders from getting away with similar abuses of power.

A common thing I hear is we don't have the votes. I think today's vote to kill Kucinich's resolution goes to show that anything's possible! But I digress.

Investigations into impeachment may be the most effective way of ending the occupation in Iraq. Here's why:

The president and vice president have made clear that they will not end the war while in office and will disregard anything Congress does to end the war. Congress has made clear that it will not attempt anytime soon to use the power of the purse to end the war. When Congress moved toward the impeachment of Richard Nixon, it developed the nerve to end the Vietnam War; and it was the pressure of the looming impeachment that led Nixon to back off on continuing the war.

In the case of Bush and Cheney, the benefits to the antiwar movement of an impeachment movement are likely to be greater because the impeachment will be about the war and about crimes that the administration has attempted to justify in the name of the war. Investigations of these crimes by Congress have arrived at an impasse. The administration is refusing to comply with subpoenas and refusing to answer questions when testifying under oath. The current Supreme Court provides no way out of this threat to our constitutional republic.

Impeachment is the only tool we have left and that is why I believe that impeachment has the potential of not only ending this war but also of reversing the militarism and imperialism that are driving our nation ever more rapidly into additional wars.

If they win.

The overall landscape tilts in the direction of the Democrats, but there is evidence in the new poll -- matched in conversations with political strategists in both parties and follow-up interviews with survey participants -- that the coming battle for the White House is shaping up to be another hard-fought, highly negative and closely decided contest.