In Washington DC, spring is in the air - and so is impeachment!

Rightwing Senator Chuck Hagel discussed his famous impeachment quote (in this month's Esquire) on ABC's "This Week"

"Any president who says, I don't care, or I will not respond to what the people of this country are saying about Iraq or anything else, or I don't care what the Congress does, I am going to proceed — if a president really believes that, then there are — what I was pointing out, there are ways to deal with that," said Hagel, who is considering a 2008 presidential run.

And would Republicans defend Bush from impeachment? Judging by the Gonzales battle, probably not. Here's the evil Robert Novak:

"Gonzales never has developed a base of support for himself up here," a House Republican leader told me. But this is less a Gonzales problem than a Bush problem. With nearly two years remaining in his presidency, Bush is alone. In half a century, I have not seen a president so isolated from his own party in Congress -- not Jimmy Carter, not even Richard Nixon as he faced impeachment.

Republicans in Congress do not trust Bush to protect them. That alone is sufficient reason to withhold statements of support for Gonzales, when such a gesture could be quickly followed by his resignation under pressure. ....

So Republicans are fleeing Bush's lonely sinking ship. Will Democrats seize the day? No way in hell, according to the #4 Democratic leader Rahm Emanuel:

Asked if he could see any situation in which Democrats would bow to a small segment of liberal voters who were pushing for, say, impeachment, Representative Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois Democrat who is the party’s conference chairman and was serving in Mr. Clinton’s White House at this time of that impeachment, responded sharply. “That’s not going to happen,” he said. “Forget it.”

Forget it, Rahm? Not on our lives.