impeachment based on non-compliance with the oversight

* in case you missed this story - heres Amy Goodman:

"Meanwhile, a Justice Department investigation into the Bush administration’s domestic spy program has been closed because the National Security Agency refused to grant investigators security clearances. According to the Office of Professional Responsibility, investigators had been asking for the clearances since January, but were only told their requests had been denied this week. New York Democratic Congressmember Maurice Hinchey called for a probe of the NSA’s denial, saying: "The Bush administration cannot simply create a Big Brother program and then refuse to answer any questions on how it came about and what it entails.”"

* KagroX doubts that a Dem Congress will be able to investigate at all, given that the egadministration already refuses any oversight by the Courts or Congress. KagroX finishes thusly:

It's time for us to discuss what's so pragmatic about assuming the Bush "administration" will suddenly reverse course, and own up to its wrongdoing in the face of Democratic inquiries. Maybe nothing. Maybe it's all about taking things one step at a time. But make no mistake: the steps have been taken. There won't be time to waste on reinventing the wheel if the reins of government are passed into our hands in January. This "administration" has defied Congress -- a supposedly co-equal branch -- and it is no solution to say that Democrats pose a better alternative because they propose making really, really sure that the defiance is genuine.

What I think is a "realistic" or "pragmatic" way of looking at the question of impeachment is this: if there's an impeachment, it's much more likely to be over executive encroachment on Congressional prerogatives -- the diminution of Congressional power -- and not any of the rest of the garbage this "administration" is guilty of.

Not only is self-defense (not to mention self-interest) ultimately the only thing that would motivate Congress to act, but it's also the only "high crime" for which the withholding of evidence needed to convict can itself be the evidence needed to convict.

Setting a precedent for impeachment on the specifics of the charges against which we proposed to exercise oversight only goes so far. But setting a precedent for impeachment based on non-compliance with the oversight itself is a far-reaching and much-needed line in the sand. One that we failed to draw definitively after Nixon, and having failed to do so again after Reagan, we now find ourselves scratching our heads in wonderment at Bush's defiance of that same line, not yet drawn.

(h/t jiminy cricket)