Go on, grumpy! Do something good for the country instead of just bitching about it! ;)

From Kucinich for Congress email: Last week, Congressman Dennis Kucinich delivered a petition bearing more than 100,000 names to the Speaker of the House urging that impeachment proceedings begin into the conduct of President Bush. . . . With new disclosures that the Administration tried to "cook the books at the CIA" by creating a phony, forged link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, "We cannot step back and let this President escape accountability." If you have already signed the impeachment petition at www.kucinich.us, thank you. If you haven't, please do. And, in the next few weeks, please ask just one more person to sign so we can let the members of Congress hear our collective demand that they meet their obligation to uphold the Constitution. Thank you. The Re-Elect Congressman Kucinich Committee

I'm going to have to order one of those!

Publius, as just one example, the preemptive Iraq invasion and occupation is criminal. It's not a matter of policy, it's a matter of right versus wrong. Well, at least we agree on the wasteful Clinton impeachment proceedings, even if we don't agree on the reasons behind it. And yes, Osama did get away because of Congress wasting Clinton's time with Monicagate. As for Monica causing him to be less efficient as president, occasional oral sex doesn't take all that long, and besides, as an accomplished multitasker, his hands and head were still free to conduct business such as taking phone calls and reading documents, which, according to the Starr report, he did. ;) It's also an old right-wing ploy to blame the sins of the current administration on the Clinton era. So don't put words in my mouth. You know what I mean: 9/11 happened largely because Clinton was impeded from doing his job effectively during his impeachment, and don't forget that Conde Rice ignored that all-important memo about the Bin Laden threat to the U.S., dismissing it as a "historic document". And Bush then took advantage of public outrage and paranoia over 9/11 by invading Iraq. I have a problem with anyone lying under oath, whether it's Scooter Libby or Clinton, and there should be some kind of appropriate punishment for that. But the reasons for presidential impeachment are treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors-not lying about sexual misconduct. I believe that the reason Bush hasn't been impeached already is that in his first term, Republicans were in the majority in Congress and prevented it, and in his second term, the Democratic majority is scrambling to undo the damage he's wreaked and sadly, most of them don't want to take time out to do it (but if you listened to the House Judiciary hearings last week, a number of them clearly stated what a corrupt president they think he's been). On a good day, Bush has a 29% approval rating, which indicates that not only do left wingers think he's a lousy president, so do a substantial number of centrist and right wingers. And that shows that Americans are increasingly aware that: "Bush lied (about everything). Bush destroyed our economy. Bush is destroying the planet. Bush is in cahoots with the Saudis. Bush is trying to create a theocracy. Bush is trying to create a fascist state." I don't know about the anti-Christ part, not being religious. Actually, I thought Obama was the designated anti-Christ! I also blame the American people for the rampant corruption in government. About half of them don't even bother to vote, and they're ultimately responsible for who ends up in office. It takes a real crisis for Americans to stand up and notice what's going on and try to do something about it. And it looks like that's what's happening this election year. That's the good news. I just hope President Obama proves capable of doing the job. So I gather you're kind of the Andy Rooney of Xomba, the grumpy devil's advocate who tries to keep everybody honest. That's OK with me. Hey, somebody's gotta do it.

In those days, the media had a gentleman's agreement not to publicize the sex lives, illicit or otherwise, of presidents, even though the press couldn't help but be aware of their shenanigans. What was considered important was the capacity of the Commander in Chief to run the country, and JFK, in his 1000 days, did a pretty good job of it, in my opinion. FDR had extramarital affairs and Eisenhower had at least one. They were both good presidents. We even had a gay president (James Buchanan). And as has been pointed out, McCain has fooled around on his first wife. And so on. So in my opinion, the impeachment of Clinton over a sexual matter was ridiculous, and the Republicans did it just because they hated Clinton and they could get away with it.