Laura: HAHAHAHAHAHa… no. Yes, but, after spending all this time talking about right to privacy, the last thing I want to do is give that up which is exactly what becoming a politician would be like. Also, I think I’m at least smart enough to realize I got no damn business running a puppy shop, let alone being a legislator or executive. And just to make sure we get all three branches covered, I definitely don’t have the inclination to be a lawyer, so the Judicial is out too. Though, with this exciting new Fourth Branch that Cheney created… mmmm…. maybe there’s a place for me in government after all. I get to have my own title… How’s under-chancelor sound? I’ll work on it.

Simone: Thank you so much. Though, well, okay so I wasn’t so specific as you explained, so I’ve been kinda leery as to whether that was sarcasm or not… Being a blogger has made me way too paranoid. Thank you.

PE: And another thank you. okay, for everyone, thank you… I’m not used to such praise, so er… little off balance. Back to PE. Okay, I think it interesting that you bring up the Clinton impeachment. As I’m sure you know, Clinton enjoyed approval ratings in the sixties throughout that entire ordeal, and I think one of the things that has impacted Democrats on impeachment is that while Bush may have won the presidency following Clinton (of course this will always be in dispute), the impeachment itself has been viewed as a backfire, or at the very least a misfire.

I think the effect we see here is that the Republicans have ruined the idea of impeachment for a long time down the road. Whether on purpose or on accident the concept of impeachment has now been tainted with the mantle of being so bitterly partisan that you simply don’t do it. If you move to impeach, you will not keep your job which is terrible because when we talk about checks and balances, that is by far the harshest and most powerful check the Legislature has on the Executive.

And I very well know that I’m not alone when I say that if you want cause for impeachment, you simply need to take a look at the history of this administration, and I’m sure you’ll find plenty of cause.

The thing is, and Mick and I have been circling this for a while, and I think we are finally coming to a convergence, is that it’s the leadership. It’s the leadership, and this idea that far too many Democrats aren’t willing to take that extra step for fear of getting steamrolled by the Republican political machine.

At times, they’ve showed progress (like the Gonzales hearings), but then they never follow through. The amazing thing is that they seem genuinely scared of Bush’s accusations of “obstructionism.” What they don’t realize is that the very reason they were elected a majority in the first place was to be obstructionists!

One of the Administration’s big PR stunts the last six months or so has been to attack Congress for being too concerned with investigations and not concerned enough with actually passing legislation (specifically domestic legislation). They seem to have bought into this, thinking that this is why their approval rating is so low. In reality (IMHO at least), the real reasons for their attrocious approval rating are that: 1. We’re still in Iraq; 2. Constitutional and human rights are still being ignored; and 3. Not one person has been impeached (consider that a recent poll found far more Americans want Bush/Cheney impeached than ever wanted Clinton impeached!).

In fact, I suspect that if you were to add up the number of Reps and Sens who’ve tried to buck the DLC/BD Alliance on every front from trade to civil liberties to the environment, they’d outnumber the Alliance by a significant factor. The problem is that the leadership – Rahm Emanuel is a major force here – has been using Tom Delay-style tactics as well as heavy-handed fear-mongering to keep them in line. As a result, they haven’t come together as a cohesive whole, at least not yet.

But there’s a revolt simmering under the surface and what we need to do is help it along by clearly identifying the leadership as the problem instead of making blanket condemnations of “Democrats” without clearly defining which ones we’re talking about, and by identifying and supporting those Democrats, like Jim Webb (sometimes) and the ones I mentioned above, who try to do the right thing in the face of the leadership’s opposition and disapproval.