What is the problem?

Yesterday the Vermont House voted against impeachment (the Senate had voted for it). Today during the Democratic debate sponsored by MSNBC the candidates were asked to raise their hand if they supported Kucinich's articles of impeachment. Not one raised their hand. So what is the problem? What are they afraid of? If anyone deserved to be impeached is has to be Dick Cheney, no question about it. By not impeaching him they are actually failing to carry out their constitutional duty. The failure to hold Cheney (and Bush and others) responsible for their terrible crimes means, I conclude, that our Senators and Congresspersons think these crimes are perfectly okay. Is that the message we want to send to the rest of the world? What is even more amazing is that a majority of the American people apparently want impeachment (if Bush/Cheney lied to start the "war," which they clearly and demonstrably did). I confess I cannot understand this. I guess they are all so involved in the military/industrial/political complex that is running roughshod over our (past) democracy they just can't be bothered with the constitution (or even right from wrong).

Speaking of the debate, why did they call it a debate? There wasn't any debating. In fact, if it hadn't been for the presence of Kucinich and Gravel you might have thought you were watching a tea party. They all comported themselves with the utmost good fellowship. I thought they all did well (for what they did). Hillary was presidential, Biden had his verbosity under control, Dodd was Dodd-like, Obama was polite and glib as always, Richardson was like a western governor, Edwards was serious and thoughtful, and so on. I give Richardson credit for saying he would pull ALL the troops out of Iraq. I'm sure no one else, except Kucinich, would say such a thing. Gravel is obviously running for president only to express his anger and contempt for what the rest of them (excluding Kucinich) are doing. He managed to make Kucinich look sort of moderate. The only two that made any sense to me were Gravel and Kucinich. The rest were just the same as, same as. It was interesting (although probably entirely predictable) that the issue of Israel/Palestine barely came up. Obama was asked a direct question about the Palestinians and managed to say nothing other than he would try to deal with it. Kucinich brought it up himself and said he would deal with it. Nice to know that at least a couple of them would try to deal with the single most pressing issue in the Middle East. This is obviously the issue "that dare not speak its name" (Israeli lobby, you know). Some of the questions I thought were kind of dumb, like "what would you do if two American cities were attacked by terrorists simultaneously? Both Richardson and Obama immediately said they would respond with our military (hopefully they would try to find out exactly who the enemy was before launching their attacks). Too bad that the only candidate that makes any genuine sense, Kucinich, "can't get no respect."

There is some kind of commercial for Doritos that I think personifies where we are. Two bags of chips are fighting in a boxing ring until one of them attacks the other with a chain saw. Sigh.