scarfman* pointed me toward
a thoughtful, informed, point-for-point analysis of Kucinich's 35 Articles of Impeachment. I'll cheerfully admit that I have more outrage than expertise in matters of Constitutional law, so it was refreshing to see someone really scrutinizing the legal validity of the bill in question. Certainly, no one in the Corporate Media has bothered to do so.
He categorizes them according to the following criteria:
Fair Cop (no reason why Democrats shouldn't vote for it), Complicit (Democrats supported it), Clinton-bait (involves the same kind of crimes Democrats voted NOT to impeach Bill Clinton for), Not a Crime (self-explanatory), and Just Plain Nuts (ditto).
Even this gentleman classes no less than seven of the Articles as a Fair Cop, with no qualifiers. I must, however, take issue with his category of Clinton-bait. He explains it further in his analysis of Article II, stating:
This article, on the other hand, is simply about Bush lying, plain and simple. The Clinton impeachment made it plain that the majority of Democrats still in office today believe lying, even under oath as a witness in court, is not an impeachable offense.
This is binary logic at its worst. It lacks proportion and nuance, hinging on a comparison of a straw man version of one case to a straw man of the other. If I may be permitted to repeat a crudity, it sees no difference between cum stains and blood stains.
It also asserts that no member of Congress should ever be permitted to change his or her mind, even after the passage of a decade. Perhaps, given so long to consider the high ground of their opponents' punitive morality, they, too, have come to see the light!
And perhaps they could even say that with a straight face.
*Thanks to
scarfman for mentioning the Impeachment issue in today's
Arthur, King of Time and Space!