Kucinich's Little World

You really have to love this part of politics.

It is hard to know which effort has longer odds, the bid by Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio, to become president of the United States, or his bid to unseat Vice President Dick Cheney by impeaching him.

Both efforts got a brief burst of publicity on Tuesday when Mr. Kucinich brought his bill to impeach Mr. Cheney to the House floor and, with the surprise help of Republicans aiming to embarrass Democratic Congressional leaders, nearly succeeded in securing an hour of debate.

After a motion to table Mr. Kucinich’s bill failed, the majority leader, Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, stepped in with a motion to refer the bill back to the House Judiciary Committee. That motion succeeded, by a near-party-line vote of 218 to 194, and spared the Democrats a potentially embarrassing distraction.

House Republicans initially opposed the effort to debate Mr. Kucinich’s impeachment measure, and briefly there were 290 votes in favor of tabling it.

But then the Republicans sensed an opportunity to irritate the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, who has said the Democrats have no interest in impeaching Mr. Cheney or President Bush over the Iraq war. The Republicans began changing their votes, and by the end, the tally was 251 to 162 not to table it, with 165 Republicans voting no.

I'm not sure what is sillier, Kucinich or the Repugs who are trying to irritate Pelosi. Being the minority the Repugs are doing what is expected, and I'm sure that really is toasting Nancy's back side.

I caught Kucinich on Tucker Carlson's show last night and it was pretty pathetic. He really should go for it. I mean I don't know if the congressional approval rating can get much lower, but this is certainly a means to see if it can. I'd say this is a step more pathetic than the Clinton impeachment. But only a very small step.