That was my reaction yesterday after listening to Ed Schultz interview House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) about the prospect of the House initiating impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney. His answer (to paraphrase), “Congress has better things to do, besides the people will take care of this in 18 months by themselves. Impeachment is off the table.”

Let that sink in for a minute…Congress has better things to do than ensure the viability of our Constitution. Better things to do than to ensure that we’re a nation of laws not men. Like what? Hoyer has the answer: The Democrat’s “positive agenda” of health care, helping veterans, improving education. Hoyer must have had a Bob Shrum transfusion.

This, my friends, is how Democrats consistently lose elections. Bush’s approval is at 25% and falling. Cheney is at a robust 18% approval. The nation is in a rage about Iraq and want us out now. The Attorney General is committing blatant and provable perjury. Bush aides are defying congressional subpoenas under the guise of executive privilege. In the background Bush has signed executive orders that have defined the entire US as a battlefield, which means that Bush can, solely and at his whim, declare martial law. Today, he signed another executive order which gives him the right personally to confiscate all of the property and assets of individuals (US citizens, that’s you and me, folks) of people he, and he alone, deems are supporting the efforts of Iraqi insurgents. Does that mean people who disagree with his policies? All we need is a Kristallnacht or a couple missiles lobbed into Tehran to obviate the ‘08 elections. The parts and pieces are in place.

So here is one of the leaders of the Democratic Party, the party we installed to throw the bastards out waxing all policy-wonky about the Democrats positive agenda. I can understand Nancy Pelosi making the statement that impeachment is off the table. After all, she’s the one who personally gains if we off the pigs who are running this sty of an administration. But how does Hoyer square his position with John Conyers and Henry Waxman who are doing the people’s work rooting out the filth, corruption and obscenity that follows this administration’s every move? How can he look them in the eye and say, “Good job, boys, go get ‘em.”

How does he look his constituents in the eye, especially those in his district who have lost fathers and sons, wives and daughters in the Baghdad slaughterhouse and tell them he’s doing everything he can to bring them home? How does he square his behavior with his oath of office when he chooses to put his head in sand while the Constitution and everything we stand for is under such blatant and withering attack? The country is becoming more restless. It doesn’t want to put up give these guys another 500 days to destroy the country we love and cherish.

These are truly extraordinary times tragically guided by an insatiable evil on the one hand and a band of nattering mediocrities on the other. I don’t like the odds.