The articles' author, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio), has been written off derisively, both within and outside the halls of Congress, for having launched the impeachment process. Such was also the case last year, when Kucinich first sought to bring Vice President Cheney to trial, alleging he spewed a catalog of lies to bring America to war with Iraq.

Kucinich's effort, at this point, is counterproductive. Were it to proceed, it would bog down government in partisan rancor that would make the current state of battle between congressional Democrats and Republicans look like a church picnic. And with the Bush presidency down to months, many are asking: What's the point?

Well, there is a point, and give Kucinich credit for trying to make it. Each day, Americans are gaining more detailed information that suggests it was not so much erroneous intelligence that led the Bush administration to conclude war was necessary; it was hubris. The president and Cheney discounted any counterargument to war because their minds were already made up. They refused to believe they could be wrong.

In fact, evidence suggests they didn't care if they were wrong about Saddam Hussein's having weapons of mass destruction. He was a bad player and they wanted him out of the way. The result, they believed, would be a remaking of the Middle East, with democracy rooted in Iraq blossoming throughout the land.

No need to dust off the homily about where good intentions lead you. Suffice it to say, the Bush doctrine has been blown off the tracks, though some believe it could make a recovery over time. That might mean decades.

As history is being written in the interim, Kucinich seeks to have it on record that Congress eventually laid down the law with Bush.

But Kucinich's resorting to impeachment ignores Congress' complicity in any crime, since it authorized and funded the war. Lawmakers must plead to being either dupes or incompetents, who failed to fulfill their role in the separation of powers.

Having been read into the record, the impeachment articles now are likely to do no more than gather dust in committee. OK. But at least Kucinich did his part to place a footnote in the history books. More chapters are to be written before the saga of Bush in Iraq comes to a conclusion.