Meanwhile …

Reassurances from Democratic Party leaders that Congress is committed to the country’s "serious business" blew right out of the big top on Tuesday. The Three-Ring Partisan Circus put its side-show freak front and center to remind Americans why they hold the legislative branch in such low regard.

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who’s seeking the Democratic nomination for president on his record of ruining the city of Cleveland as a twentysomething mayor, introduced three articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney. He then presented a resolution to force the House to vote on the articles, which allege that Mr. Cheney fabricated the threat of weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi was sent into full crisis-management mode. Despite Democrats’ constant chirping about corruption and wrongdoing by the Bush administration, she worked frantically to make sure "Dennis the Menace" didn’t get his day in court. Impeachment might play well with the party’s far-left radicals, but it wouldn’t please moderate voters who are unhappy with everyone in Washington.

House Republicans wanted nothing more than to force Democrats to go on the record. They were united behind Rep. Kucinich’s resolution. It took Speaker Pelosi more than an hour to round up the votes to topple the resolution on a 218-194 vote. The tally redirected the measure to the Judiciary Committee.

Afterward, both Republicans and Democrats attacked each other for playing politics instead of dealing with the aforementioned "serious business." Congress still hasn’t sent a single appropriations bill to the president’s desk.

It all makes us wonder: If Speaker Pelosi can’t keep Rep. Kucinich off the House floor, how can she and her colleagues possibly be expected to take on the spread of radical Islam and illegal immigration?