Impeachment Returns To The Table?

What's this all about:

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), the most liberal of the Democratic presidential candidates in the primary field, declared in a letter sent to his Democratic House colleagues this morning that he plans to file articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney [...]

Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to impeach the president, vice president and "all civil Officers of the United States" for "treason, bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Sources tell the Sleuth that in light of the mass killings at Virginia Tech Monday, Kucinich's impeachment plans have been put on hold. There will be no action this week, they say.

Kucinich's office had no comment on the Congressman's "Dear Colleague" letter -- which apparently was drafted over the weekend, before the school massacre -- or on what the focus of articles of impeachment against Cheney would be.

Of course, Cynthia McKinney drafted articles of impeachment the day before she left Congress. I would argue that the way to do this is through the investigations currently being undergone in the Judiciary Commitee, not by leapfrogging the process and going straight to the indictment before "impaneling the grand jury," as it were. But this will set some hearts a-flutter for Kucinich and possibly allow him to get on the teevee and raise more money. I would add that the worst person to put forward such articles is a guy who's running for President.

The "Dear Colleague" letter is very circumspect:

April 17, 2007


Dear Colleague:

This week I intend to introduce Articles of Impeachment with respect to the conduct of Vice President Cheney. Please have your staff contact my office . . . if you would like to receive a confidential copy of the document prior to its introduction in the House.

Sincerely,

/s/

Dennis J. Kucinich

Member of Congress

Hm. My conclusion is that this isn't really a serious proposal. It doesn't have the support of House leadership, I imagine, and is probably the work of Kucinich going it alone. It certainly will stir up those predisposed to convict before seeing the evidence, but really this gets the process backwards. Unless there's some smoking gun in the document that nobody else is aware of. And if there was, you wouldn't hold it off for a week to get maximum value in the news cycle. Trials shouldn't stop because the publicity isn't sufficient.

(Let me say that I personally met Dennis Kucinich in 2003 and liked him, and saw him do something I'd never seen a politician do. We were out on Main Street in Santa Monica, a heavily-trafficked area for the homeless, and a man approached him for money, and he took down his information and told him that he would get him a place to stay for the night. No cameras or reporters were around. It was remarkable.

That was very impressive, but in the intervening four years I see Dennis trying to get in the spotlight more than anything.)