Bad idea

WaPo:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said in an interview last week that a Democratic House would launch a series of investigations of the Bush administration, beginning with the White House's first-term energy task force and probably including the use of intelligence in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Pelosi denied Republican allegations that a Democratic House would move quickly to impeach President Bush. But, she said of the planned investigations, "You never know where it leads to."

Most Democrats already understand that if Democrats take control of the House or Senate that they will investigate a lot of what this President has done. And that's fine. But when the main complaints of the public are high gas prices and uncertainty about Iraq, voters on the fence are not going to be wooed by investigations but by solutions.

And Howard Dean seems to get it:

In an exclusive Sunday interview on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Dean dismissed the idea that Democrats would seek to impeach President Bush if they won back control of Congress - a possibility floated by Republicans looking to galvanize their base.

This should be a standard claim. There are no plans to impeach the President. None. And there shouldn't be, honestly, because there is no way to know what's going to turn up if investigations get under way.

If there is something out there that suggests Republicans can rally the base by claiming Democrats will impeach the President, you should not be out there suggesting that their claim is true, especially when turnout will have a big impact on the outcome.

Democrats already have a reason to go out and vote. Republicans are searching for theirs. Don't say anything that will aid their cause.