Why not impeachment?

In a WaPo editorial, McGovern said that "the case for impeaching Bush and Cheney is far stronger than was the case against Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew after the 1972 election."

So why aren't there impeachment proceedings? I used to think it was because the Republicans wouldn't go along, and so the Dems won't bother. But the Republicans went ahead with impeaching Clinton even though the Dems were very much against it. Then I thought it was "9/11", as in, everything is okay because of 9/11. But the polls don't support that view. So what is it?

I think I finally figured it out: because the American people understand stealing and sex. Nixon faced impeachment because the American people understood "breaking and entering."* Clinton faced impeachment because the American people understood "sex."

But I don't think that the American people really understand violating the Geneva Conventions, extraordinary rendition, politicizing the Justice department, manipulating intelligence, the war as a violation of international law, deceiving Congress, subverting the national interest, signing statements, the VP office not in the executive branch, hiding/destroying public records, and the general chutzpah of Bush in deciding which laws he is going to obey and which he isn't.

It probably appears to the average joe as just political wrangling of the ordinary kind, and not crimes worthy of impeachment, indeed far more worthy than Nixon's breaking-and-entering and Clinton's sex.**

* Technically, in terms of Nixon, it was about cover-up, but I believe the people focused on it as the reality of breaking-and-entering, not about a cover-up.

** I think I finally figured this out while watching Giuliani's campaign implode. It didn't implode because Giuliani broke laws, is unqualified, or flip-flopped on issues. It imploded because of sex.