Anna, Elizabeth, Hillary & Monica (No, Not That One)

"By 59%-30%, they say Democrats are investigating the dismissals mostly for political advantage, not because of ethical concerns."

Arianna Huffington invokes the specter of impeachment -- but not against Bush:

"In his weekend radio address, President Bush said of the investigation into the U.S. Attorney firings: 'Members of Congress now face a choice: whether they will waste time and provoke an unnecessary confrontation, or whether they will join us in working to do the people's business.'

"He got it half right. If his administration continues to thwart the ability of Congress to uncover the truth about the firings, there will indeed but a 'confrontation.' But it will hardly be 'unnecessary.'

"If the president continues trying to run out the clock on this scandal, Congress should immediately begin impeachment proceedings against Alberto Gonzales. It's the quickest way to the truth. . . . If Bush's game is to stall, Congress should play the impeachment card since, as Robert Kuttner points out, 'an impeachment inquiry could be completed in a matter of months.'

"Kuttner calls Gonzales the administration's 'point man for serial assaults against the rule of law.' And his sordid track record as White House counsel and AG bears this out: Guantanamo, the misuse of 'national security letters,' the abuse of the Patriot Act, the illegal spying on American citizens, and now his lies about his involvement in the U.S. Attorney firings.

"Bush has 21 months left in office. That's far too long to continue with an attorney general with such contempt for the law."

The Gonzo-Meter is at 75 percent, up from a 55 percent chance of departure last year.

Captain Ed also is looking at the issue of impeachment--but for Bush.

"Chuck Hagel floated the I-word during his appearance on ABC's 'This Week'. He warned that George Bush could face impeachment unless he adopted a policy on Iraq more to the liking of Congress. Hagel, who wants to run for the Republican nomination for President in 2008, has apparently learned the word impeachment in some other resource than the Constitution. . . . Only senators completely ignorant of the Constitution would consider impeachment a viable option for dealing with policy differences between the executive and the legislature. . . .

"This is just another example of Congress trying to abdicate its own responsibility on Iraq. Congress could end the war in Iraq tomorrow by cutting off all funds for the deployment. They do not need George Bush to take that step. However, it would then put the responsibility for everything that follows squarely on the shoulders of Congress, and the Representatives and Senators there largely want to avoid that. A handful of them would rather initiate an unconstitutional impeachment adventure, which would leave Dick Cheney in charge and result in no policy change whatsoever anyway, than accept the responsibility of their own actions.

"It's more than passingly strange that a man who wants to run for President seems so unfamiliar with the document that established the office. Hagel must be confused as to which party he proposes to lead. I don't think he's going to win much support in the primaries by running on the impeachment platform, at least not running as a Republican."

Blast from the past: For those who thought David Stockman practiced fuzzy math as Reagan's budget chief, he's just been charged with corporate fraud.

Great post about the media by CBS's Allen Pizzey from Baghdad:

"Trying to explain Iraq in a way that American viewers can relate to is a challenge at the best of times. It becomes even more acute when you start the day by watching American newscasts. Thanks to clever technicians who can pull down signals from European and other international satellite channels -- and access Arabic networks that like to carry the U.S. evening newscasts one after the other early the following morning -- [it's] possible to report from here and see what else is of interest to the viewers one is supposed to inform. How well we do that informing is for others to decide. What is depressingly clear is that what seems important here is far removed from what viewers in the U.S. seem to be concerned about.

"The pet food 'scandal' is a case in point. As far as I can tell from what is coming through the dust-encrusted TV monitors in our office, a dozen or so pets have died, apparently from eating well-known brands of cat or dog food. No doubt the owners paid premium prices for high nutritional value, so they have a right to be upset that instead of the glossy coats and tail-wagging promised by the ads they got organ failure. Being a pet owner, I can understand being upset when one dies. How 12 dead animals in a country the size of the U.S. rates with the sliding scale of mayhem here is what I'm finding hard to gauge. When only 12 human bodies are found on any given morning in Baghdad with marks of the kind of torture the ASPCA would quite rightly have a pet owner in court for, it is judged as 'progress' for the security plan."

He's barking up the right tree.