I hate being right, sometimes.

A few years back, when I still considered myself a conservative Democrat, I was talking to a close friend that was a little to the right, politically, of Rush Limbaugh.

This was back when the Republicans were pushing for impeachment of Clinton. My friend was one of those. I didn't necessarily disagree that the President should be impeached. I disagreed with the tactics the Republican Party used to get to that point.

Think back.

Can you remember all the different things that the Republican Congress or their surrogates investigated the President for?

Vernon Jordan's suicide.
Travelgate.
Something about Hillary being involved with a staff dismissal.
Paula Jones
Whitewater
and, finally, among others I have forgotten,
Monica Lewinsky.

I pointed out to my friend that Clinton had, literally, been under investigation for one thing or another since taking office. Were the investigations justified? Possibly. The simple fact of the matter is that no prior President in history had spent as much time under investigation as Clinton.

My conjecture was that there was not another elected official in Washington at the time that could bear that kind of scrutiny while avoiding serious criminal charges. I still believe that. I still think that, after spending that much time and that much of the taxpayer's money investigating the President, these were the only charges they could come up with to impeach him is pretty amazing. (Are you listening Messrs. DeLay and Frist?)

My friend felt that his party was justified in their actions.

I felt it was a political ploy. They couldn't win an actual election against Clinton, at the time. So, they were going to try to get him out of office in ways that cut the electorate (you and I) out of the process. I told my friend this.

Then, I laid out how this was a dangerous precedence.

If the Republicans could do this, now, I said to him, what's to say that someday down the road, when the Republicans have power again, that the Democrats can't turn this tactic on the Republicans.

Well, it appears that day is here. The Democrats have pushed investigating everything from 9-11 to Plamegate. Trying to find a way to blame the Bush administration for all the ills in the world. Just watch the news. "Bush lied and kids died." "Alienating our allies", etc.

And now, the Repubicans, instead of the Democrats, cry foul.

Payback is a ... female dog ... a big one ... PMS'ing... isn't it?

Just for the historical record, though, the Democrats have never been able to bring impeachment proceedings against a Republican President, not even Nixon. The only two Presidents in American history to have impeachment proceedings against them were both Democrats who faced Republican accusers, and both were acquitted.

So, up to this point neither party has been able to get the job done, in that respect.

We'll see what happens. I wouldn't bet on Bush facing impeachment. And, my bet is that the harder that the Democrats push towards that goal the more they will look worthless in the eyes of the American electorate, at least in terms of winning a Presidential election.

Remember, you read it here first.