Kerry Jokes About Impeachment

John Kerry caused nervous twittering when he imagined aloud that a Democratic victory in the House of Representatives next year could result George Bush's impeachment.

Sen. John Kerry said last night that if Dems retake the House, there's a "solid case" to bring "articles of impeachment" against President Bush for allegedly misleading the country about pre-war intelligence, according to several Dems who attended.

Attempting to distance Kerry from Kerry, Kerry's spokesman David Wade insisted that Massachusetts' junior US senator was just kidding. Wade: "Is it really a story that, with a smile on his face and to ensuing laughter, at a Christmas party for his hardest working troops who are still working to win in 2006, a Democrat joked about why these diehard Democrats needed to keep dreaming of a Democratic Congress? Impeachment jokes in Washington are as old as Don Rumsfeld and as funny as Dick Cheney is gruff. Only the truly humorless would say bah humbug to the rarest of partisan red meat." Wade said Kerry often asks this question: "How are the same Republicans who tried to impeach a President over whether he misled a nation about an affair going to pretend it does not matter if the Administration intentionally misled the country into war?"

But, Kerry said pretty much the same thing a month ago.

Roll Call editor Mort Kondracke has been around Washington forever, and is anything but a sensationalist. So it's pretty striking to see his fairly serious speculation (subscription required) about whether Democrats might try to impeach George W. Bush if they win back the Congress in 2006. He even thinks John Kerry's been floating an impeachment trial balloon:

...[S]aid Kerry, "How are the same Republicans who tried to impeach a president over whether he misled a nation about an affair going to pretend it does not matter if the administration intentionally misled the country into war?"