Turning Tides
I gotta say, this post yesterday from Josh Marshall,
As regular readers of this site know, I’ve always been against themovement to impeach President Bush. I take this position not because hehasn’t done plenty to merit it. My reasons are practical. Minor reasonsare that it’s late in the president’s term and that I think impeachmentitself is toxic to our political system — though it can be less toxicthan the high officials thrown from office. My key reason, though, isthat Congress at present can’t even get to the relatively low thresholdof votes required to force the president’s hand on Iraq. So to use ananalogy which for whatever reason springs readily to my mind at thispoint in my life, coming out for impeachment under presentcircumstances is like being so frustrated that you can’t crawl that youcome out for walking. In various ways it seems to elevate psychicsatisfactions above progress on changing a series of policies that aredoing daily and almost vast damage to our country. Find me seventeenRepublican senators who are going to convict President Bush in a senatetrial.
On balance, this is still my position. But in recent days, for thefirst time I think, I’ve seen new facts that make me wonder whether thecalculus has changed. Or to put it another way, to question whether myposition is still justifiable in the face of what’s happening in frontof our eyes.
[snip]
Whether because of prudence and pragmatism or mere intellectualinertia, I still have the same opinion on the big question:impeachment. But I think we’re moving on to dangerous ground right now,more so than some of us realize. And I’m less sure now under thesecircumstances that operating by rules of ‘normal politics’ isjustifiable or acquits us of our duty to our country.
Reminds me a lot of the posts he was writing in Fall 2002, such as this post, written on September 20, 2002.