Impeach!... Or Else!

Cindy Sheehan comes out of retirement to threaten Speaker Pelosi. According to the AP, Sheehan plans to run for Pelosi's congressional seat next year "unless she introduces articles of impeachment against President Bush in the next two weeks." Them's fighting words.

I am all for using the primary system to put incumbents feets to the fire, but this strikes me as counterproductive. Regardless of whether or not impeachment is justified (it is), this issue is hardly worth judging the effectiveness of a Congress. It's a political judgement call.

Sheehan says that the Speaker has "let the people down who worked hard to put Democrats back in power, who we thought were our hope for change." Ignoring even that a) most of the gridlock and squabbling have come from the Senate (Pelosi's gotten a lot of bills passed, most of which have gone on to die in the Senate thanks to GOP interference), and b) Democrats can't pull the necessary conservative votes out of thin air... this is also off.

Polls show people elected Democrats for a number of reasons-- ending the war, ending corruption, tackling economic disparity, etc-- but impeachment wasn't high on the list of priorities. Support it or not (and polls show many do), that's just reality.

I agree that ol' Bushie's a criminal scumbag, but impeachment's the wrong priority for several reasons. One is that they'll never get the necessary GOP votes, making it a masturbatory waste of time. The second is that an impeachment battle would be the rallying cry that the dejected, demoralized GOP base has been waiting for. Never hand your enemies weapons in a battle. Finally, it's a little late to begin a lengthy impeachment process, since we are in the midst of a early presidential primary campaign. That's where partisan energies should go... working hard to elect a good President, one who would work sincerely to correct the damage of the Bush term(s). Fighting an impeachment battle that we can't win is not the only way to punish Bush. Sinking the permanent GOP majority that he and Rove intended to build through their criminality also works for me.

The anger is strong. But we have to know how to pick our battles. My gut says this ain't it.

Thoughts?

[UPDATE: She has a Daily Kos diary for this... she's definitely off the rails on this one.]