Six months after he chastised Congress for not following George McGovern's advice to impeach President Bush, CNN's Jack Cafferty on Thursday scolded House Democrats for disposing of the latest impeachment effort by the far-left Dennis Kucinich (earlier NB post on Cafferty's blog entry). Fretting that “the House of Representatives voted to send an impeachment resolution against President Bush to a committee where it will die,” Cafferty used his “Cafferty File” segment during the 4 PM EST hour of The Situation Room to lecture:

Congress continues to refuse to exercise its constitutional responsibility, which is oversight of the executive branch of our government. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi long ago said impeachment is off the table. This is a joke. We have a President who has abused the power of his office over and over and over again. It's what got the Democrats elected to the majority in Congress in 2006. The Democrats, no doubt, are worried what it will look like to many voters if they spend their time on impeachment. To hell with what's right or wrong.

My January 8 NewsBusters item, “Cafferty Channels McGovern: 'Why Won't Congress Impeach Bush?'” recounted:

CNN's Jack Cafferty on Monday advanced former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern's call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, posing as his “Cafferty File” question in the 6pm EST hour of The Situation Room: “Why won't Congress impeach President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney?” Highlighting McGovern's bombastic op-ed in the “Outlook” section of Sunday's Washington Post, “Why I Believe Bush Must Go: Nixon Was Bad. These Guys Are Worse,” Cafferty quoted McGovern's contention Bush and Cheney “have repeatedly violated the Constitution,” “have lied to the American people time after time” and have carried out a “murderous, illegal, nonsensical war.” So “illegal” that the House and Senate, controlled by Democrats, continue funding it.

Cafferty's June 12 segment:

The House of Representatives voted to send an impeachment resolution against President Bush to a committee where it will die. Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment this week, most of the resolution focusing on the Iraq war. But they also charge President Bush with illegally detaining both U.S. citizens and foreign captives, a charge upheld by the Supreme Court as you saw earlier, condoning torture, mishandling the response to Hurricane Katrina, and on and on and on.

But Congress doesn't want to hear it. They voted largely along party lines, 255-166, to send the resolution to the House Judiciary Committee, which is exactly what happened to Kucinich's impeachment articles against Vice President Cheney last year.

Congress sent that resolution to the same committee last November. It is still there. Nothing has been done. Nothing will be done. Congress continues to refuse to exercise its constitutional responsibility, which is oversight of the executive branch of our government. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi long ago said impeachment is off the table. This is a joke. We have a President who has abused the power of his office over and over and over again. It's what got the Democrats elected to the majority in Congress in 2006. Now it's election time again, and every member of the House is up for re-election in November.

The Democrats, no doubt, are worried what it will look like to many voters if they spend their time on impeachment. To hell with what's right or wrong. What will it look like? This is why Republicans voted yesterday to bring Kucinich's resolution up for debate immediately, trying to make the Democrats look silly for focusing on this instead of gas prices, the economy, et cetera. It boggles my mind. Anyway, here's the question: “What does it mean when Congress refuses to even consider 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush?”

—Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center