Atrios points out a devilishly clever method of impressing certain people that the only path out of Iraq in the foreseeable future lies through impeachment.

Here are the two Nancygrams I'm mailing in the morning; I'm including the copy here so those of you who don't have time to compose your own can cut-and-paste.

McScribe hammers to the basics here. Government offices are not staffed with 34 make-work welfare recipients, as the wingers would have you believe. They’re usually understaffed. Overstaffing only occurs at winger welfare fountains, like AEI, which has to supply incomes to loyal megaphones who’ve been laughed out of the public arena. Sending a large number of letters to any office always attracts attention. If Speaker Pelosi received several hundred snail mails – trust me – she’d pay attention. The point is, they get snail mail anyway. Every envelope must be opened because they don’t know how important the letter is.

The first is your basic, somewhat formal letter to a Congressperson, but it touches on the themes I brought up in this post.

The writer is making a good point. The suggestion is for a real letter. One of those things on paper. You write it out, or print it on your computer onto paper, sign it, fold it up and put it in an envelope and put a stamp on it, or, for you time-stealing corporate weasels, slip into the mail room when the mail-serf is out testing his pipe somewhere. Find the postage meter. Don’t worry, it’s probably set for the correct postage (.41) and run it through. Drop it in the outgoing bin and you’re done. (If the boss’s son is starting at the bottom for two weeks just take it back to your workstation and put it into a mailbox on your way out the door.)

Pax Americana even provides a nice basic formula:

The Hon. Nancy Pelosi
450 Golden Gate Avenue, 14th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102

Dear Madam Speaker:

Like millions of Americans, I am dismayed by your repeated assertions that the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney is simply not an option for the Democratic leadership in Congress at this point in time.

While you are correct when you say simply getting the troops out of Iraq is difficult enough, I would suggest that impeachment isn’t going to make that job any harder. The Bush administration has demonstrated that it will tolerate no interference from you or anyone else when it comes to their policy on Iraq, and they fully intend for our troops to remain there for the foreseeable future. Given these circumstances, it seems obvious that the only practical method for bringing the troops home – at least before January of 2009 – is to remove Bush and Cheney or at the very least hamstring their political authority so severely that they will have to comply with Congress’ Constitutional authority to dictate war policy.

Using impeachment to restrict the President’s political options will also have the added benefit of preventing him from doing any more damage. No doubt you hear the whispers about military action against Iran more clearly than those of us outside Washington do; I’m certain that I don’t need to point out how disastrous such action will be. If he should order a strike against Iran during impeachment proceedings, it would be obvious to even his most dedicated supporters that he is once again putting the lives of American servicemen and women at risk not because of a legitimate security concern but rather to prop up his fading political fortunes.

It is true that impeachment may cause the mechanisms of our government to grind to a halt, but seeing as those mechanisms have gone completely haywire I’m not sure that would be an undesirable outcome. Indeed, it may be the only way to bring them back under control.

Thank for your time and attention.

Speaker Pelosi's DC address is 235 Cannon HOB, Washington, DC 20515.

Thanks to the miracle of modern computing and mail merge programs it’s possible to send to both addresses. Sending two letters to different addresses doubles the impact of your protest and if you’re using the postage meter you get to stick it to the greedheads on Mahogany Row twice.

If you're only able to send one letter, and you're torn between offices, bear in mind that snail mail sent to Washington gets opened in an off-site facility, and only the letters get sent on to a Congresscritter. Since we have no way of knowing if that facility is managed by a Bu$hCo apparatchik, your letter might stand a better chance of being seen in San Francisco.

As always, be polite. Do not include bumperstickers, pins, medals, photos, wall posters or notices with letters cut out from a newspaper and glued to a blank page. This is a business letter; we're selling democracy.