House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has declared that impeachment of President Bush and/or Vice President Cheney is "off the table."

Some other discouraged Americans have declared that it is "too late" for impeachment, given that only about seven months remain before Bush and Cheney leave office in the normal course of things.

I don't believe that impeachment, if justified, can ever be off the table, or that it's too late to pursue it in this particular case.

Neither does US Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment versus Vice President Cheney last November; they remain bottled up in the House Judiciary Committee. Yesterday, he introduced similar articles versus President Bush [PDF].

Both sets of articles are damning, and most allegations in each set are supported by overwhelming evidence. President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and numerous members of their administration are clearly culpable in the commission of numerous "high crimes and misdemeanors," all of which warrant impeachment and removal and many of which warrant resort to the US and/or international criminal justice systems as well.

Impeachment is a matter of credibility for the federal government and of conscience for America itself. Crimes have been committed -- crimes which have resulted in the deaths of thousands of Americans and likely hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of innocents in other countries.

We know who the ringleaders are. We know what they did. And it is our responsibility to punish them for their crimes.

As your representative in Congress, I expect to spend a good deal of my time dealing with the fallout of the Bush administration's criminal conduct. It's going to take time to undo the many injustices perpetrated by this administration. It's going to take time to identify all the guilty parties and ensure that justice is done. Impeachment is merely the beginning. But it's a necessary beginning.

As a candidate for Congress, I stand with Representative Kucinich, and with a betrayed American people, in calling on the 110th Congress to deal with the matter of impeachment promptly and decisively. I call upon the US House of Representatives to pass these articles of impeachment, and upon the US Senate to place the culprits in the dock, convict them of their crimes, and remove them from office.