Perhaps I've not the only suspicious mind

A Secret Service officer keeps spectators back
as smoke billows from the historic
Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Reuters photo by Kevin Lamarque (vis SF Chronicle)

From a Washington Post article (via the San Francisco Chronicle):

The historic Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door to the White House caught fire Wednesday morning, and city firefighters broke windows and doused the second and third floors with water to extinguish the two-alarm blaze.

At an afternoon news conference, Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty and Fire Chief Dennis Rubin said security concerns prevented them from saying exactly where or how the fire started.

But a source with knowledge of the fire said the flames began in a utility closet off Vice President Dick Cheney's ceremonial office on the second floor. The flames were confined to the closet, but a significant amount of smoke raced through the building, the source said. [emphasis mine]

Pat Oliphant offers this cartoon:

Dan Wasserman echoes it with this:
And Ann Telnaes adds a couple more elements here:

Have you heard about Congressman Wexler's attempt to force action on the Cheney impeachment resolution that was referred to committee?

Bill Hare posted this at Political Cortex yesterday evening:

Congressman Robert Wexler indicated that he hoped he would receive at least 50,000 signatures of support online when he announced along with House Judiciary Committee colleagues his intention to bring before that body the subject of impeaching George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Since that initial announcement support has reached levels that enabled Wexler to double his initial expectation as he has just passed the 100,000 milestone. He now is hopeful of receiving 250,000 signatures of support in his effort and anticipates initiating action before the end of the year.

It is significant to note that when Congressman Wexler approached the mainstream media about running his announcement as an op-ed piece that he was spurned by those stalwarts of the mainstream media, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and USA Today.

There is not much coverage of the impeachment issue in the SCLM (so-called liberal media). As noted above, even an op-ed (co-authored by three members of the House Judiciary Committee) can't make it into the big papers. Only the Miami Herald, in Wexler's home state of Florida, included an edited version as a "letter to the editor."

You can read the op-ed for yourself here (click on "read the op-ed"). NOTE: Wexler is pushing for the HEARINGS to happen. That is how you investigate allegations to determine if there are actual grounds to proceed to impeachment. If, in the light of substantive issues, we don't even examine the evidence then Congress isn't doing its job.

Meanwhile, the FCC is acting to allow further consolidation of the media. That ain't gonna help keep us informed when it's already so difficult to find out what is going on. Ask me if I give a rat's ass about Britney's underage sister getting pregnant. [Clue: I don't.]

Here are the opening paragraphs from John Dunbar's AP article (via the Seattle PI):

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Communications Commission, overturning a 32-year-old ban, voted Tuesday to allow broadcasters in the nation's 20 largest media markets to also own a newspaper.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin was joined by his two Republican colleagues in favor of the proposal, while the commission's two Democrats voted against it.

Martin pushed the vote through despite intense pressure from House and Senate members on Capitol Hill to delay it. The chairman, however, has the support of the White House, which has pledged to turn back any congressional action that seeks to undo the agency vote. [emphasis mine]

To borrow a shot title from the BBC: Are you being served?

I do not think We the People are being served well at all.

bincbom writes at Daily Kos:

Please take the time to sign the petition, if you haven't already. Cheney impeachment is on the receiving end of a colossal media blackout, and if we "netroots" people don't help, nothing will happen.

Remember that the situation was much the same back in 1973. Impeachment charges against Nixon were filed in the House of Representatives, and then widely ignored by Congress, just like what's happening right now. An outcry from the enraged public finally forced Congress to act.

"How do I sign the petition?" you ask. Just go here to sign the petition. As of this moment it has 109,255 signatures.