Is Impeachment practical? Are there workable alternatives? The stakes are high.
The two questions that each must asked themselves are whether the actions of the President amount to a threat to Constitutional government and whether impeachment is the most effective tool for defeating such a threat.
If the answer to first is the affirmative, then impeachment is clearly mandated. However, the second question remains.
It remains because impeachment is essentially a political, rather than a legal mechanism. It effectively stands outside the limits of our jurisprudence. There is no judicial appeal from impeachment. There is no court with the authority to set evidenciary standards or overrule the will of the legislative branch.
The practical reality is that, regardless of the "crimes" of the executive, or the threat they may pose to constitutional rule, or the zeal of its proponents, impeachment will not succeed without an overwhelming popular political impetus. That was a lesson the GOP learned the hard way with the Clinton impeachment.
This brings us back to the question of efficacy. While it's true that a successful impeachment would liquidate whatever threat the executive posed, the consequences of failure must be calculated as well.
If Congress were to bring charges and the Senate fail to convict, it would establish an institutional precedent. That being the legislature's refusal, as an institution, to consider the specific actions alleged to be grounds for impeachment.
By way of illustration, I think it highly unlikely that anyone reading this will live to see the day when a President is again impeached for actions concealing personal sexual behavior outside the duties of office. The Senate acquittal of Clinton established the institutional precedent that such behavior doesn't constitute an impeachable offense.
I very much doubt that impeachment proponents would care to see a similar precedent established regarding Bush's actions.
So simply riling up the base, as the GOP did with Clinton, isn't enough. That might get you to impeachment but it won't get you to conviction and impeachment without conviction is worse than no impeachment at all.
Until now, this fact has been the strongest card held by those arguing for congressional hearings and investigations rather than formal impeachment proceedings. However, both the Libby commutation and the Miers fiasco have severely undermined this alternative. If the executive can openly suborn Contempt of Congress while using its power to shield its agents from the consequences of criminal behavior, it's difficult to see how Congress' investigatory and oversight functions can operate.
We should recognize that allowing such a state of affairs to go unchallenged would constitute an institutional precendent just as surely as a failed impeachment would.
The stakes here are extremely high, as they have been ever since the elites decided to lead the nation down the warpath blazed by the Bush/Cheney regime. No one on either side of this debate can be certain of the outcomes.
My only advice, for what it may be worth, is that proponents of impeachment ought to be about the business of convincing the unconvinced and greater proportion of the population that impeachment is not only justified but an absolute necessity.
Those who actively disagree need to produce an alternative that has some actual prospect for meeting the danger. That, or a convincing and compelling argument that the current executive poses no danger to constitutional rule.