“Politics is the art of the possible” -Otto Von Bismark

There are growing number of folks with a full head of steam about impeachment. There’s impeachcheney.org. There’s impeachbush.org. The blogosphere is abuzz with the idea. The mainstream media is starting to discuss it. There’s actual articles of impeachment against Vice-President Cheney in the House, submitted by Dennis Kucinich and sponsored by nine other representatives. And it’s going to go nowhere.

Think it through. Let’s start with impeaching President Bush. Let’s say that someone introduced articles of impeachment in the House and the resolution began to take off. All you need is a simple majority to pass the resolution and since the Democrats control the 53% of the seats, it’s fair to say they can accomplish this.

Then it’s on to the Senate which is where the President would have to be convicted by a 2/3 majority. That’s a bit trickier. There’s 49 Senators from each party and two independents. It’ll take some convincing to get at least 16 Republicans to vote against Bush. But let’s assume you get 67 votes to convict and President Bush is removed from office or he resigns prior to the conviction.

The country would now begin to execute a change of course once President Cheney is sworn in. Right?

Impeaching President Bush is comparable to deposing the Queen of England- strongly symbolic but functionally pointless. President Bush is not this administration’s center of gravity. Dick Cheney exerts the real power and sets the strategic direction of this administration. Impeaching Bush without impeaching Cheney is nothing but political theater.

So impeach them both you say! Well ok. Let’s look at that.

Let’s say we got the articles passed in the House, and then the Senate voted to convict them both. Time to play “Hail to the Chief” for President Nancy Pelosi. The Democrat.

Do you think that the Republicans would willingly turn over the White House to the Democrats? Short of discovering Bush & Cheney in the Oval Office with pistols and machetes in their hands amongst bloodstained bodies, there won’t be anyone leaving office for the next 18 months. It’s just not possible.