"We should not pursue impeachment because it could cost us the next election."

That sentence sounds pretty ugly to most people who read BlueOregon and other liberal/progressive blogs, not to mention millions of other voters around the country. Putting politics ahead of the Constitution? Ahead of the rule of law? Jesus, boy, are you just stupid or what?

Putting aside that my #1 reason to oppose impeachment now is that I want nothing to get in the way of ending this war as soon as possible. (Anybody out there like me with a kid who could be sent off to this war at any time, please tell me how my priorities are all screwed up. Those without "skin the game," shut the hell up about my personal priorities.) I rise to defend the need to make a political judgment on this matter. And I say that my political reasoning has at its roots both the rule of law and a belief in progressive, grassroots politics.

Progressives are as guilty as anyone else as comdemning "politics" as something evil, nasty, skanky, dark, please-god-make-it-go-away. Might as well blame "relationships" for divorce and love-making. It's what you do with politics that matters; it's simply a name for a process, and that process is how we all live together in public life. As anyone who's taken Poli Sci 101 knows, we have diverse people, diverse opinions, diverse understandings of the world, diverse (and limited) resources, and some peole have a whole bunch of power. Where 15,000 years ago we'd resolve differences with a club or a rock, today we use a bunch of other tools. When we manage to avoid violence and stick to communication, process and institutions, we're pretty much doing politics.

Jimmy Carter spoke of government is good as the American people themselves, which some found hopelessly naive but points to the potential for politics. Put a person like Peter DeFazio or Ron Wyden into politics, and you get public service. Put a person like Gordon Smith in and you get service to ideology and wealth. Put in a Tom Delay or Karen Minnis, and you get a vicious attack on democracy itself. Look at the difference in House Speaker from this year to 2005 and 2003; politics still happened, but because Jeff Merkley, who believes in public service was the Speaker, the outcome was democratic and pretty darn good. It's not politics that's rotten at times; it's the people.

And it's the system, of course, but that's another long issue for another time. We know that money is a corrupting factor, a point that needs little explication.

Politics involves both winning elections and running government. You can't do the latter if you don't do the former (and the former, and to a lesser but still significant degree, the latter, is where money is so insidious). Politicians and political parties that act in ways that cost them elections usually have little effect on how government is run (Al Gore and Jimmy Carter, not to mention all the ex-politician lobbyists are exceptions of a kind). Minnis lost the election in 2006 and spent the 2007 session warming a chair in the back of the room; she's now quitting altogether. Gore lost (was robbed) in 2000, and as a result our government gave the rich a big tax cut, flushed science down the toilet and plunged our nation into a horrific war. This was the result of the crappy political management of Terry McAuliffe, Donna Brazile and all the wimpass DLC types. The Rs did the politics better (and in the case of Bush, found a way to illegally keep thousands of Floridians from voting) and they got control of the government.

All anyone need do is read Richard Clarke's tale of what happened as he and Sandy Berger tried to impress upon the new Bush White House the imperative need to go after al Quida and bin Laden, how the Bushies did nothing about terrorist threats and how they immediately set about using the attacks of September 11th as an excuse to invade Iraq. These things happened because the Democrats spent the 80s and 90s being inept at politics. Had Michael Dukasis not been a political idiot, he would have won in 1988 and probably handed off to another Democrat in 1996, and we'd be looking at a much different, much better world today. Speculation, yes, but several decades of crappy politics from the Democrats, constantly out-maneuvered and out-thought by the Republicans (granted, often using the dirtiest of tricks), gave more and more of the government to the radical right and their ideologues.

And we can specify clearly the results of political actions in the country today. A Supreme Court dominated by right-wingers who give lip-service to "original intent" and then rubber-stamp an ideological doctrine. A worthless "war" on terror. Global warming. Poverty that gets worse. An AIDS pandemic that may slaughter half of Africa. America as world enemy #1. Domestic politics based on fear, anger and hatred we've not known since the days of the Civil War. This is what our politics of the past thirty years has wrought.

And what do we have to look forward to?

Over at DailyKos, there's a list of 18 pieces of legislation Bush either opposes or has threatened to veto. The latest is an expansion of children's health insurance, a bipartisan bill with national support. Also in there, bills on hate crimes, homeland security, DC voting rights, whisteblower protection, lower Medicare drug prices, rail and mass transit security. These are incredibly important; just ask your Gran who can't afford her meds, or the people in London and Madrid who saw trains used to slaughter innocent people.

This is the bottom line of politics: It's how we get the right people into government so government can do the right things. Imagine Lincoln losing the election in 1860; imagine Gore winning in 2000. Those were political struggles, one that went well, one that turned out tragically. What if Humphrey had found those few extra votes to beat Nixon in 1968? Not as good as Bobby winning, but America without Watergate and the illegal bombing of Cambodia and all the other evil Nixon did; would that not have been a good thing?

Politics: We replace Gordon Smith with a Steve Novick or Jeff Merkley. Politics: Democrats win the Oregon House and work with, not against, their opposition to develop good legislation for all Oregonians. Politics: We duke it out next year over who we want as Senator, what we'll do about Measure 37, whether we believe all Oregonians deserve equal rights. Somebody tell me these are bad things.

So when I say that we must take politics into consideration, I hope people won't just start popping off about "icky yucky politics" and actually remember what politics is about. Yes, our political system is pretty fucked-up; there's no questioning that. But we don't fix it by cursing it and walking away. We fix it by getting involved, becoming political and electing good people who we work with as citizens once they are in office.

None of which makes impeachment a bad idea, except if by pursuing impeachment we find that Congress grinds to a halt and the voters decide it was the vindictive Democrats who couldn't resist payback. If an impeachment battle causes the Republicans to close ranks and bring government to a standstill, can the Dems then convince the voters they were in the right? The track record isn't very hopeful on that. Yes, it's possible that through sheer force of will impeachment can be pushed through; it's even possible Bush and/or Cheney could be convicted. This would be a very good thing for the rule of law and to enforce the sanctity of the Constitution, both of which desperately need to occur. But what if the result is a loss of the Senate? Mitt Romney as president? What if we get to punish Bush and we lose the country?