Which Constitution is Murtha Reading?

On Sunday's Face the Nation, surrender monkey Rep. John Murtha quiped:

"There’s three ways or four ways to influence a president. One is popular opinion, the election, third is impeachment and fourth is the purse.”

Oh, really? Impeachment is a way to "influence" a president? That's interesting since I don't remember that appearing anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. Here's what the Constitution actually says about impeachment:

The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

In practice, the grounds for conviction for an impeachable offense has been limited to indictable criminal offenses. So is Murtha allegeing President Bush has committed some act which constitutes treason, bribery, or a high crime or misdemeanor? Or is noted Constitutional scholar Murtha advocating some new interpretation of the Constitution where disagreement over foreign policy constitutes an impeachable offense?

Murtha's comments on impeachment clearly signal his true goal: to cow the President into obeying Congress. If you take Murtha at his word, Articles of Impeachment are basically the equivalent of a club, a club which he can use to beat the President on the head with until the he starts to come around to seeing things the way Murtha does. Murtha would turn the President into an office that serves at the pleasure of the Senate, something that goes against over 200 years of history. In Murtha's world, the President must agree with Congress or else be impeached. Political disagreements between the executive and legislative branches will not be tolerated, not by the legislature anyway.

Murtha's comments are nothing but an endorsement of a naked grab for power by the legislature and should be condemned by EVERY thinking person. Impeaching and convicting President Bush of an impeachable offense is a precedent that would be as short sighted as it would be wrong. Does Murtha seriously think the Democrats will never be in the minority in Congress again? He was in the minority long enough that he should still remember what it's like. Or maybe he's just still not used to being somewhat relevant yet and just hasn't figured out he needs to make sense once in a while.