The office of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) last Thursday denied an internet rumor suggesting that Rep. Pelosi would pursue an impeachment measure against Vice President Dick Cheney should she receive 10,000 handwritten letters in favor of the measure.

Pelosi spokesman Tim Idpol called the prospect "unthinkable." "Even if she received 10 million handwritten letters, personally hand-delivered by the letter-writers themselves by 9am PST tomorrow, she still would not consider uttering another word about impeachment in Congress. Ever. It's just too politically risky."

OK, so that's not exactly how it happened.

But it's true there was an internet rumor as mentioned above, and Pelosi's office found itself having to deny it. (The first paragraph above is taken virtually verbatim from a report on TheRawStory.com. The second paragraph merely represents what Pelosi seems to be thinking.)

It all started the previous week on Nov. 6 when Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH!) introduced H Res 333 (now renamed H Res 799) to impeach Vice President Cheney, much to the horror of the "pragmatic" Democratic leadership. He had submitted it before, but this time it was brought forward as a "privileged resolution," meaning it had to be discussed on the House floor. Kucinich said the timing was motivated by the mounting danger of an attack on Iran, which Cheney is pushing.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer tried to kill the resolution with a motion to table, but 86 Democrats broke with the "impeachment-is-off-the-table" leadership to keep the resolution alive. (A majority of Republicans also voted against tabling, indicating they are either interested in distancing themselves from the corrupt and widely unpopular Cheney, or they believe, like Pelosi, that impeachment proceedings could backfire on Democrats.)

Unable to kill the resolution, the impeachment-phobic Dems did all they could to bury it by sending it back to the Judiciary Committee, where it had languished since Kucinich first introduced it in April.

The attention garnered by the House floor debate, however brief, energized the growing impeachment movement, buoyed by the cracks beginning to show in the House's anti-impeachment edifice. By the weekend, the 10,000-letters-to-Pelosi rumor began circulating on progressive blogs. A few days later, Cindy Sheehan, who will be challenging Pelosi for her seat next year, sent out an email repeating the rumor and requesting the letters be first sent to Sheehan to be counted, then delivered en masse to Pelosi's office. Pelosi's staff was put in the interesting position of having to publicly deny that 10,000 handwritten letters would change the Speaker's mind on the matter.

This begs the question: Just what will it take to get Pelosi to allow impeachment proceedings to move forward? It will be up to the growing impeachment movement to find the answer to this question.

Washington For Impeachment director Linda Boyd finds hopeful signs in the recent House vote. She notes that here in our state, in addition to resolution co-sponsor Jim McDermott, Jay Inslee and Norm Dicks also voted against tabling. It's significant that, nationwide, 64 Democrats who were not co-sponsors nevertheless resisted Pelosi's arm-twisting and voted against tabling the resolution. Those votes included Judiciary Chair John Conyers and other members of the Judiciary Committee. All this indicates to Boyd that the grassroots pressure for impeachment investigations is having an effect.

Boyd cites national opinion polls showing growing interest in impeachment, with more in favor of impeachment investigations than against. These numbers are already higher than the percentages that favored impeachment hearings against President Clinton in late 1998. And speaking of historical precedent, Boyd notes that even after Watergate, impeachment proceedings against Nixon were slow to get underway.

In addition to the opinion polls, Boyd notes that organized grassroots pressure for impeachment is building. Here in Washington state, 10 Democratic legislative districts and four counties have passed resolutions favoring impeachment. Democratic state parties in Oregon and California have come out in favor of impeachment. In Vermont, the state legislature passed a resolution urging Congress to take up impeachment. This is just a small sample; grassroots activities are underway all across the country.

Indeed, one has to wonder where fear of impeachment comes from among the House Democratic leadership. It can't be for lack of public sentiment, which would likely tip more toward impeachment once all the damning evidence is presented in public hearings. And it can't be for lack of evidence. Judiciary Chair Conyers himself had commissioned a report giving over 200 pages of evidence for impeachment back when Republicans controlled the committee. Now plenty of books and websites have laid out the case for impeachment on several different counts, including the Iraq war, torture, warrantless spying, and more.

Democrats who oppose impeachment don't argue the case for impeachment doesn't exist. They know the case is strong, as does most of the rest of America and the world. Opposition is always couched in terms of having "other important matters" to attend to, fearing backlash, or tactical political considerations in the run-up to the 2008 presidential campaign. As if these things should trump the oath Congress members take to uphold the Constitution, or the importance of setting precedent to prevent future administrations from violating the Constitution and international law. Since when did this become a trivial concern?

Boyd says that now is the time to turn up the heat on our Congressional representatives. She notes that some of them may simply not want to be associated with a resolution introduced by Kucinich; in that case they should be encouraged to submit their own resolutions. Kucinich focuses on the lies leading to the Iraq war; others could focus on warrantless wiretapping, illegal detentions, or torture. There's plenty for everybody.

One thing that's clear is that Congressional leadership is going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming by public pressure to do the right thing and remove the criminals from the White House. And as Linda Boyd notes, "Impeachment is just the first step." Let's get busy.

Some helpful resources: http://www.washingtonforimpeachment.org; http://www.afterdowningstreet.org; http://www.impeachbush.org; http://www.impeachbush.tv.