It would be a serious mistake to view the impeachment controversy in Vermont as a litmus test of how avidly one's elected representative disapproves of President George W. Bush. The implication in most of the pro-impeachment arguments is exactly that--if you don't want to impeach him, you must not hate him enough.

But that's not the question. The question is whether or not you want the House of Representatives and the Senate to spend the next two years in an impeachment struggle, or whether you want the Congress to be involved in creating meaningful legislation to undue the woeful damage that the President has wrought to our nation's interests at home and abroad.

Or, as the question was put by the Rutland Herald's Pulitzer Prize winning editorialist David Moats, "members of the Vermont House will have to decide whether the symbolic is more important than the real."

All three members of Vermont's Congressional delegation are opposed to introducing an impeachment resolution in the House of Representatives. You will not find a more anti-Bush delegation in all of Washington than Sen. Pat Leahy, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch. Yet all of them believe their job now is to work on constructive legislation, not become involved in an epic impeachment battle.

Many have argued that George W. Bush deserves to be impeached. But once again, that is not the question. The impeachment process was written into the Constitution not to punish presidents who deserve it but to preserve democracy in extremis. The question is not, "Shall we punish Bush?" but "What can the Congress do that most benefits the nation?" With the Congress now in Democratic hands and the President in full retreat on many fronts, that last question is best answered by constructive legislation, as soon as possible.

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