Anti-Impeachment

Kos over at DailyKos makes an argument that I've heard many times before regarding impeachment, ...or more precisely not impeaching Bush. Among his arguments are that we don't really want Cheney or Hassert, so why remove Bush?

He finishes the post with this:

We have bigger fish to fry than getting even against Bush for his misdeeds. Bush has three years of radioactive lame duck-ness left in his term. The key isn't to replace him with another Republican. The key is to use his every day in office to drive him to the American public the cost we pay as a nation for electing Republicans to office.

And as far as legacies go, what would be worst -- destroying his own presidency or destroying his entire party? Let's make sure it's the latter.

Markos, you're history of political consultancy is showing. And it would be very easy to follow this very smart political calculus to success.

Except for one teensy weensy problem.

Bush is incompetent! He's not only ideologically troubling, he's plan old incapable of governing. And his lame-duckness, along with scandal, have put into disarray those who were governing. Without the other players, Bush moves toward being dangerously incompetent.

The longer he's in office, the more damage he does. No matter who replaces him, they will be under the same political pressures of the mess made by the past five years of incompetence. But maybe, just maybe, Cheney, Cheney's replacement (if he's indicted) or Hassert would show some level of ability resulting in fewer deaths in Iraq, and more competence in the U.S domestically. At worst, Bush's replacement is as bad, which merely results in the same political fallout Kos expects with Bush. But at least an impeachment/removal from office sends a message to future Presidents and the citizenry?

And even if the Dems pay a small price of losing some ground for having someone in power with competence, so what? Aren't we supposed to all be wanting what's best for the country above political wins? Were this discussion about ideology alone, I might agree with Kos. But unfortunately, I think we're fighting to keep the fundamentals of our government intact.