Impeachment: An army at war with itself

A Kos diarist named Meteor Blades has captured my own sentiments exactly. He favors impeachment -- has favored it since 2003. He offers practical advice on how to move forward on the issue. He said, before I did, that the best tactic is to focus on the Judiciary Committee.

But MB also feels constrained to offer this note in his most recent post:

But I am increasingly appalled by the self-righteous declamations here and elsewhere in wwwLand that anybody who doesn’t see impeachment as the holy grail of current politics is an idiot, a turncoat, a sell-out, a willing or unsuspecting servant of the Dark Side. I am up to my eyebrows with the "with us or against us" tenor of so many of the Diaries on this subject. Many people who think that shouting – particularly shouting insults and smears – at Congresspeople (or fellow progressives) [will work] seem incapable of extrapolating from their own reactions when someone insults or smears them.

I’m not arguing against expressions of anger. Anger has its place. Sometimes, too, you have to sit down in the middle of the street and say, we’re not moving until the powers-that-be change direction. But, as I see it, a few of the most avid impeachment advocates are sabotaging their own case with assertions of nefarious doings by people with longstanding and impeccable progressive credentials. The fact that this actually amounts to sabotage is concealed by the popularity a rant always rouses from the amen corner.

People who speak of the disunity of the Republican Party make me laugh. By the beginning of next year, and probably sooner, the GOP will have the Robot Factory fully operational once more.

At this point, I've rarely seen the Democrats so fractious.

Of course, whenever Dems get the barest hint of power, the fragging begins. Anyone else out there recall the Dem-against-Dem hate-fest that marked the Carter years?

Bottom line, I'm starting to think that the goal of impeachment, always difficult, may be impossible. A blind and arrogant fury directed at the wrong targets always makes a bad impression, and army at war with itself does the work of its enemy.