A Democratic takeover of one or even both houses of Congress is unlikely to result in any new affirmative legislation or policies, since their control will be by only a small margin, dependent on conservative lawmakers in their majority, and subject to a presidential veto. With some exceptions (such as the power to control appropriations and cut off funding), the real power they will have will be to investigate and expose the conduct of the Bush administration and to reveal to Americans what has really been going on.

It is difficult to overstate how crucial that is for exposing what the Republican Party has become and undermining those who control it. The administration has been able to ward off even the most incriminating accusations and disclosures because they control the primary sources of information. They can deny anything, selectively release misleading exculpatory information, and operate in the darkest shadows and behind the highest walls of secrecy. As a result, disclosures about what they have done are always piecemeal and easily obscured. But full-fledged hearings will shine a bright light on what the administration has really been doing, and that will enable the public to get a full picture of the true state of affairs.

A Democratic takeover of the House would have dramatic implications for revealing what's been going on, making it public, making sure that the people understand the mischief, corruption and incompentence the Republicans have brought to the Federal government, and, therefore, to bring considerably pressure to bear against more bad stuff happening in the remaining years of the Bush/Cheney administration. It can't stop it, not when the other side controls the Presidency and the upper house of Congress (and the Supreme Court, when push comes to shove), but it can help to slow things down and to counter, to some extent, the bully pulpit of the Presidency.

It's too bad that it won't (apparently) be the Senate that we're taking back, because Senate committee hearings are, by their very nature, much more focused and pointed than House committee hearings (too many people to be heard on the House side), and control of the Senate would also do wonders for stopping the right-wing takeover of the Federal judiciary. But that's going to have to wait for 2008, it looks like. Unless Jim Webb and Harold Ford and Claire McCaskill are swept up in a huge Democratic tsunami (which isn't impossible), it seems as if we're going to just miss taking the Senate, while taking the House by a comfortable margin.

BTW, I don't take seriously at all the idea that Bush should be impeached -- not because he's not done stuff that worthy of impeachment, that goes without saying, but because it's politically impossible, even with the Democrats controlling the House. That's because quite a few of those Democrats are fairly conservative, and would vote against impeachment, and because the American people don't really want to go through another impeachment, especially one that can be cast as politically inspired. I know that polls can be read to say that 51% of the public thinks Bush should be impeached, but it's a pretty weak 51%, since only 28% say it should be a top priority, and, after all, it's only 51%! Reasonable people, rational people, don't start out on a drastic course like that with only a bare-bones majority behind them -- that's exactly what Bush and Cheney have done, to our great detriment.

Besides, it's easy to say "yes" to a pollster when you're pissed off at someone, like the people are pissed off at Bush. It's another thing entirely to revel in the idea of going through the same, slogging process we live through not too very long ago. If the impeachment of Clinton did anything, it insured that no President would be impeached for at least a generation, if not two.