By Dave Lindorff

There are two ways to view the news that the House Judiciary
Committee will be holding a hearing on impeachable crimes by President
George W. Bush.

One view would be that this is all a charade and that after all, it
will not be a real impeachment hearing, but rather, simply a hearing
into the impeachable crimes of the Bush administration. As committee
Chair Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) put it, “We’re not doing impeachment,
but he [Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who introduced 36 articles of impeachment]
can talk about it.” Viewed that way, this is not such a big deal. Rep.
Kucinich gets to make his case that the president is committing high
crimes and misdemeanors and abuses of power and war crimes, but then
Congressional Democrats will continue to ignore all the crimes as it
has done since taking control of Congress in November 2006.

When Nancy Pelosi took impeachment "off the table" during the 2006 campaign, what was her justification? She said the most important reason to elect a Democratic majority was to give them "subpoena power."

Well We the People beat the unbeatable Bush-Rove political juggernaut, elected Democratic majorities, and made Pelosi the Speaker of the House. And then the Democratic chairs of the various committees started issuing subpoenas. And then White House counsel Fred Fielding told the Democrats (politely and very slowly) to go Cheney themselves.

So now Speaker Pelosi has to make a decision - whether to enforce those hard-earned Democratic subpoenas, or simply throw them into the trash can.