Will a rising tide sink all boats?

There is a small but rising chorus of questions about, and in one or two cases open calls for, impeachment.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, has sent a letter to four presidential scholars, asking them to give their opinions on whether President George W. Bush has committed an impeachable offense.

Famed constitutional attorney Martin Garbus and former intelligence officer Christopher Pyleboth say it is an impeachable offense.

...ranking House Judiciary Democrat Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) [has made a] motion to censure President Bush and Vice President Cheney for providing misleading information to Congress in advance of the Iraq war, failing to respond to written questions, and violating international law.

The resolutions were introduced Sunday evening along with a third resolution (HR 635) to create a Select Committee to investigate the administration's intent to go to war prior to congressional authorization. The committee would also be charged with examining manipulation of pre-war intelligence, thwarting Congressional oversight and retaliatory attacks against critics. As part of this resolution, House Judiciary Democrats seek also to explore violations of international law as pertaining to detainee abuse and torture of prisoners of war.

The Select Committee seeks to subpoena the President and other members of the administration in hopes of ascertaining if impeachable offenses have been committed...

Ah, you may be saying, but Boxer and Conyers are Democrats. That's true. And from what I could find out with a quick Yahoo! skim, Garbus and Pyle are comparatively liberal, too. But that's more than can be said for Bruce Fein and Norm Ornstein.

Fein is the former deputy attorney general in the Reagan Administration, Ornstein is a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Here's how they responded to a recent question on the matter.

QUESTION: Is spying on the American people as impeachable an offense as lying about having sex with an intern?

BRUCE FEIN: I think the answer requires at least in part considering what the occupant of the presidency says in the aftermath of wrongdoing or rectification. On its face, if President Bush is totally unapologetic and says I continue to maintain that as a war-time President I can do anything I want – I don’t need to consult any other branches – that is an impeachable offense. It’s more dangerous than Clinton’s lying under oath because it jeopardizes our democratic dispensation and civil liberties for the ages. It would set a precedent that … would lie around like a loaded gun, able to be used indefinitely for any future occupant.

NORM ORNSTEIN: I think if we’re going to be intellectually honest here, this really is the kind of thing that Alexander Hamilton was referring to when impeachment was discussed.

Will anything come of this? God knows. But some pretty big guns from both sides of the aisle are saying it should.