The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

If Bush is not impeached for his actions before leaving office then the next President will inherit his expanded powers. It will be nearly impossible to impeach a future President who commits the same crimes.

Bush has severely damaged America's reputation in the international community. Impeachment will send a message to other countries that America rejects his aggressive policies.

As of now, Bush and Cheney have six months months left in office. Bush can do an incredible amount of damage, even start a war with Iran, in the time he has left.

If we don't do something to stop this, it sends a message to future leaders that they too can get away with even greater harms to our government and our constitution.

Jeralyn also says it's more important to focus on beating McCain. True. But the Dems can walk and chew gum at the same time! They can campaign for Obama and hold hearings. In fact, history shows the party that impeaches is the party that does well in the next election.

Many polls show a majority of Americans favor impeachment.
More than 70% of democrats and a majority of all Americans favor impeachment. 88% of Democrats in Pennsylvania favor impeachment. It may be political suicide to be on the wrong side of this issue. [AmResGrp] [Zogby] [Polls]

Only 57% of Republicans opposed censure in a March 15 poll by American Research Group. 23% of Republicans supported impeachment according to a January 2006 Zogby poll. Contrary to claims that have been made, impeachment will not galvanize the Republican base. Many Republicans oppose Bush.

History shows that pursuing impeachment can help in the next election. Democrats won in a landslide in the election after drafting Articles of Impeachment against Nixon. (Nixon resigned before he could be officially impeached.)

When the Republicans impeached Bill Clinton, against the will of the people, they kept both houses of Congress and the White House, losing only a handful of seats in the Senate (which had acquitted), but maintaining the same majority in the House. In addition, Republicans won the election of 1868 shortly after leading the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.

Many Democrats believe that push for impeachment then it might force John McCain to take unpopular positions supporting Bush. The Democratic victory in 2004 was considered to be largely a referendum against Bush. Impeaching Bush in 2008 could help build on that victory.

Legislators take an oath to protect the Constitution so it is their duty to protect it from Bush's crimes by calling for impeachment regardless of the political consequences.

What is demanded is not another toothless congressional hearing, but rather the constitution of a war crimes tribunal. Those responsible must be held accountable.

Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet and Ashcroft should be placed on trial. Those like former White House counsel and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Cheney's chief of staff David Addington and Justice Department deputy assistant secretary John Yoo, who crafted the pseudo-legal arguments legitimizing torture, should be prosecuted as well, together with those military and intelligence officials who directed the criminal practices at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and other CIA and military camps and prisons.

The Democratic leadership has no desire or intention to fight for such a reckoning. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other party leaders have repeatedly insisted that impeachment of the president and vice president is "off the table." They have no interest in pursuing the administration on the issue of torture because they themselves are complicit, with Pelosi and other senior congressional Democrats having been briefed extensively on the criminal methods employed at Guantánamo, which they approved and concealed from the American people.

On a more fundamental level, the Democrats have been complicit in a policy of global militarism and aggression--carried out under the mantle of a "global war on terrorism"--which is directed at using armed force to further the interests of America's ruling oligarchy. It is this criminal strategy--resulting in the loss of over 1 million Iraqi lives--that has given rise to the crime of torture itself.

Nonetheless, the deepening crisis of American capitalism is creating the conditions for profound shocks and changes in political and social relations that may well result in Bush, Cheney and Co. standing in the dock as war criminals.

Such a trial is vitally necessary from the standpoint of halting these ongoing crimes, preventing the use of similar methods against political opposition within the US itself and politically educating the American people.

In a display of parliamentary maneuvering that combined cynicism and cowardice, Democratic members of the US House of Representatives voted unanimously to kill an impeachment resolution against President Bush introduced by Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.

Kucinich himself participated fully in the farce...

The 251-166 margin of the vote, held on a roll call Wednesday, saw all 227 Democrats--including Kucinich and his lone co-sponsor, Robert Wexler of Florida