Annoying but right
Howard Dean is annoying and arrogant but his realistic view of human nature is rare among Officially Approved Commentators. Yesterday on some NFR show he was comparing this week's Three Scandals. He said that IRS was the most important and most likely to damage Obama ... but only IF the Repooflicans handled it right. And he knows the Repoofs will NOT handle it right.

After that, I tuned to one of the second-string Repoof shows, and sure enough they're still running full force on the completely insignificant Benghazi thing. This has actually replaced ZERO TAXES as their sole topic of discussion for the last six months.

I like to use the Seven Second Test on talkers of various types. Tune to any talk show and start counting. You will hear a mention of the current Sole Topic before you hit 7. Up till last September, you could count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, TAX. Now it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, BENGHAZI.

Repoofs have somehow convinced themselves that Benghazi is the Magic Touchstone Of Impeachment. If only WeThePeople could learn its Universal And Urgent Importance, it would guarantee the end of Obama.

Nope. If you have to spend six months persuading WeThePeople of any topic's importance, it's a lost cause. Repoofs made the same mistake in '98 with Clinton and sex. They convinced themselves that WeThePeople would rise up and impeach if only we could be taught and persuaded. Didn't happen. WeThePeople didn't care. WeThePeople did care about Clinton's treasonous romance with China, but the Repoofs couldn't bring themselves to focus on that, because they were on the same treasonous side.

Same thing now. Outside the echo chamber, we don't even know what the Benghazi thing is about. Who's Susan Rice? Why does it matter if she was telling the truth or not? Nobody in government ever tells the truth.

From my viewpoint, the only scandalous aspect is the fact that we still have embassies. The development of international telephone and radio service in the 1930's made embassies unnecessary; now they only serve as targets for protests, kidnappings and attacks. Bring everyone and everything home, dammit.

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More generally, anyone who pushes for impeachment is an unrealistic fool. It's a reliable shibboleth. (Of course the top-level talkers understand this; they are only manufacturing anger to increase their confiscatory advertising rates.)

Plain fact: Impeachment is not going to happen. Guaranteed. Even if it did happen it wouldn't accomplish the goals you imagine. As originally designed, impeachment could have been effective because the Pres and Vice Pres were meant to come from different factions. Since 1804 (though not required by law) the P and VP have always been from the same party, so impeaching the P only gives you another politician with precisely the same agenda. This should be blatantly obvious, but apparently it isn't.

In 1974 the Soviets in Congress understood this reality and solved the problem with a complex chess move. First they replaced Agnew with Reliable Soviet Agent Gerald Ford, then they started impeaching Nixon. Unless you have enough power and intelligence to pull a similar 'castling' move, you're not going to make one microspeck of difference.
  ¶ 2:40 AM