Why is it that politicians and pundits continue to behave as though they can exert any influence upon George Bush and Dick Cheney? The pair have explicitly stated on any number of occasions that they are not only unwilling to take advice from anyone other than themselves, but that they regard ignoring Congressional strictures, let alone mere advice, as a positive duty and Constitutional prerogative. Anyone who genuinely hopes to influence the White House has exactly one option: replace the current occupants of it. The reality shouldn’t prevent Congress from enacting the most stern measures possible, but it should prevent them from hoping that what they do will have an impact beyond provoking another presidential temper tantrum, and it should prevent them from engaging in the inept foreplay of non-binding resolutions on Iraq and Iran.

A James Fallows column in which he urges quick and staunch action by Congress to preempt the president’s preemptive strike on Iran is making the rounds. By all means, Congress should make clear that they regard the possibility of war with Iran as a very brief prelude to catastrophe; what they shouldn’t do is expect that Congressional action will have the effect of preventing it. It won’t. If anything, a bill barring funding for such an attack will increase the White House resolve to commit one, and Congress, having ceded much of its power to regulate war, really can’t do anything to stop it even if the White House didn’t believe themselves to exist outside the law. The resignations of a few hundred top generals might do the trick, but not Congress.

One of the arguments against impeachment is that the process would take too long, that by the time the articles were drawn up, the case made and the vote taken, the president and vice president will have done whatever it is they want to do with respect to Iran. That’s probably true, but that’s also not a good reason for failing to make the attempt. Another argument is that impeachment is doomed to fail. That may or may not be true, but that too is no excuse for not trying; the stakes are the continued relevance of an already tattered Constitution and an increasingly meaningless, at least on the foreign policy front, electoral exercise.

Continue reading Whistling Past Armageddon: Why Impeachment Is A Fine Idea