Sometimes, He Makes Me Laugh

Dana Milbank, that is, not his target, Dennis Kucinich:

"I do not stand alone," Dennis Kucinich said as he stood, alone, in front of a cluster of microphones yesterday evening.

The Ohio congressman, a Democratic presidential candidate, was holding a news conference outside the Capitol to announce that he had just filed articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney. But subsequent questioning quickly revealed that Kucinich had not yet persuaded any of his 434 colleagues to be a cosponsor, that he had not even discussed the matter with House Democratic leaders, and that he had not raised the subject with the Judiciary Committee.

Kucinich did have one thing: a copy of the Declaration of Independence. And he was not afraid to read it. "We hold these truths to be self-evident," the aspiring impeachment manager read at the start of his news conference. He continued all the way through the bit about the right of the people to abolish the government.

"These words from the Declaration of Independence are instructive at this moment," he said.

A reporter from the Cleveland Plain Dealer encouraged USS Kucinich to contact planet Earth. "But Nancy Pelosi says this is not going anywhere," she pointed out.

"Have you talked to her today?" Kucinich shot back.

"Yes, I did," she replied.

Kucinich had not expected that answer. "Then I would say I have not talked to her," he acknowledged.

It was not an auspicious beginning for the impeachment of Richard B. Cheney.

Notes Raleigh AP history and government teacher Betsy Newmark:

It's rather surprising that he couldn't get even one other Democrat to go along - there must be quite a few who want to charge Cheney with all sorts of crimes and misdemeanors. Perhaps they just don't like being in the same news cycle with Kucinich.

I also don't understand why he's reading the Declaration of Independence. It is the Constitution which is relevant for an impeachment. Is Kucinich preaching the necessity of revolution after Cheney's supposed "Long train of abuses and usurpations?" If so, wouldn't waiting a couple of years be a better plan than to begin a revolution? Or does Kucinich just not understand what he's reading?

Enter a comically serious HuffPuffer:

On Tuesday, Representative Dennis Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment against Vice-President Cheney. There are three articles: manipulation of intelligence to deceive Congress and the American people, fabricating a threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction prior to the invasion of Iraq; manipulation of intelligence to deceive Congress and the American people about an alleged relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda prior to the invasion of Iraq; and threatening aggression against Iran, in violation of the U.N. Charter and the U.S. Constitution.

(Kucinich seems to be one of the few Members of Congress aware that threatening to attack other countries is a violation of the U.N. Charter, a treaty to which the U.S. is signatory.)

The author chided Milbank for his amusing dismissal of Kucinich, and even attempted to twist Milbank's article into an attack on women:

From Mr. Milbank's aggressive journalism, we learn that Kucinich is "perhaps 5 feet 6 inches tall in shoes" and that "he approached the microphones, which nearly reached his eye level." We also learn that Kucinich was undeterred by "wind that ruffled his text and the few strands of his hair that were insufficiently weighted by Brylcreem."

Feminists take note. It is not only women politicians who can expect to face irrelevant and inappropriate media commentary about their appearance. Apparently, as a male politician, if you oppose the imperial ambitions of the Washington pundit class too vigorously, you can be an honorary woman.

Robert Naiman, the writer of this HuffPuff fluff, is quite serious, even if it reads more like the content of The Onion than a "serious" political blog. It makes you wonder just how much reality is left in the "reality-based" community.