In mid-July, a media advisory from “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” announced a new series of interviews on the PBS show that will address “what Iraq might look like when the U.S. military leaves.”

     A few days later, Time magazine published a cover story titled “Iraq: What will happen when we leave.”

     But it turns out, what will happen when we leave is that we won’t leave.

     Urging a course of action that’s now supported by “the best strategic minds in both parties,” the Time story calls for “an orderly withdrawal of about half the 160,000 troops currently in Iraq by the middle of 2008.” And: “A force of 50,000 to 100,000 troops would dig in for a longer stay to protect America’s most vital interests...”

     On Iraq policy, in Washington, the differences between Republicans and Democrats -- and between the media’s war boosters and opponents -- are often significant. Yet they’re apt to mask the emergence of a general formula that could gain wide support from the political and media establishment.

Joel Wendland has written an article opposing impeachment. His claims, and all claims of impeachment opponents, have long since been answered here. But here's some redundancy:

Wendland objects to calling Conyers "no Martin Luther King". Most of us are no Martin Luther King, but the point of that comment from Ray McGovern was that Conyers is backing away from a controversial and urgent life-or-death demand for justice. He is backing away in a manner that Dr. King almost certainly would not have. Wendland opposes attempting impeachment because it is "not likely to pass in the House". That's nonsense. The Democrats could vote as a block and pass it, and some Republicans might join them. Whether it would pass the Senate is harder to predict but far from impossible, and an impeachment with an acquittal would be far better than no accountability whatsoever. It would send a signal to future administrations that breaking the law at least MIGHT be punished.

Author’s Note: I got back from Puerto Rico over a week ago but between shooting at large rats with bottle rockets and riding my motorcycle back out to New Mexico, which, incidentally, died after an Arduous 700 miles-in-one-day-run caused the poor thing to shit a Connecting Rod right through the goddamned Engine Block ten miles over the Oklahoma border, ejecting me over the handlebars and onto a Greyhound bus. I really didn’t have the time to do the thing Justice until now. Lo Siento, Pepe. If you want faster service, pony up a little more cash. At least help me forge a Foodstamp Card, you hookers.

Needless to say, the Bush year’s have been difficult years for progressives. Reality’s "well known liberal bias" hasn’t been enough to keep pace with Team-W’s lies, misrepresentations, and manipulations. And we haven’t resorted to torture, or to tapping phone lines (Talking Head’s prescient "Life During Wartime" plays through my head as I type that phrase: "They’re tapping phone lines/ You know that that ain’t allowed.") We’ve had to deal with Bush’s imperial reach.

Fortunately (sort of) and not surprisingly, Bush’s imperial reach has developed into imperial over-reach to the extent that all but the most "blinded by the right" Bushies are coming to see the arrogance, deceitfulness, wrongheadedness, and just plain wrongness that characterize Bush governing. But that hardly means our difficult times are over—or that our difficult times will end on their own. And, at the rate Bush is screwing things up, we can’t allow ourselves to wait until the calendar says the bum’s got to leave the White House.