This afternoon Dennis Kucinich took to the House floor to press his case for the impeachment of Vice President Cheney. A little while later, and as expected, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer moved to table the resolution without a debate.

At 2:53 (according to C-SPAN) the House began a 15 minute vote on whether to table. It seemed that a decisive majority of Republicans and Democrats would vote to kill the resolution until, at the last minute, Republicans began to switch votes against tabling it. That is, they voted to give Kucinich the chance to make his case. Now, more than an hour later, Democrats have just closed the vote--with the House voting against tabling the measure.

Stay tuned for more updates. And check out Michelle Malkin (who is live-blogging the travesty) and Hot Air, as well.

Michelle says:

The current tally now shows 170 yeas, 242 nays, and 21 not voting. The nays now include 164 Republicans. It does indeed seem to me that the GOP is maneuvering to embarrass the House leadership and defeat Hoyer’s motion to table the nutroots impeachment resolution.

If you’re in the know, correct me if I’m wrong.

Michelle, I'm pretty sure you've hit the nail on the head.

4:15 Update: The House is in a procedural vote on whether to vote on sending the bill to Judiciary Committee. (This is an alternate method to kill the bill, effectively.) The staff of Republican Whip Roy Blunt E-mails:

Republicans voted to force the Democrats to debate the Kucinich resolution to impeach Vice President Cheney.

This will allow us one hour of debate on the resolution.

We want to shed light on this Majority for the American people so they can see the political nonsense we are witnessing in Washington.

House Democrats are wasting precious time to play political games instead of working for the American people.

4:23 Update: The House begins a 5-minute vote on whether to send Kucinich's impeachment resolution to the Judiciary Committee. The bill won't be acted upon, so this is another way to kill it.

4:31 Update: Looks like the Democrats successfully regrouped after that first vote surprised them. The House just voted 218-194 to send Kucinich's impeachment resolution to the Judiciary Committee. This effectively kills the bill, preventing a debate on impeachment.

It's interesting that on such a weighty question as impeaching the vice president of the United States, votes can change so quickly. While the roll calls are not yet available, it seems there were plenty of Democrats who voted to go forward with impeachment when they thought it would fail, who suddenly voted against impeachment when it mattered. I guess it was all just about politics after all -- even for the supposed 'true believers.'

I note that Michelle has posted an excerpt from USA Today's On Deadline blog on this debate. USA Today says that the impeachment resolution is 'at least technically alive.' To be precise, it is as much alive as any other bill or resolution in any other committee. The committee can hold hearings, vote on it, discuss it -- or ignore it. In this case, it won't get any more attention than Mr. Kucinich's previous resolution on impeachment. So Speaker Pelosi and the House leadership have been as good as their word -- impeachment is 'off the table.'

Update: The roll call votes have now been posted. This is the motion to table -- which failed. And this is the motion to recommit the bill to committee -- which passed. There were 81 Democrats who voted to have an impeachment debate when they were pretty sure it would be tabled, then turned around and voted to prevent a debate when it was clear one might occur. Those opportunists are:

Neil Abercrombie
Tom Allen
Joe Baca
Tammy Baldwin
Bruce Braley
Lois Capps
Mike Capuano
Yvette Clarke
Bill Clay
Emanuel Cleaver
Steve Cohen
John Conyers
Joe Crowley
Elijah Cummings
Danny Davis
Pete DeFazio
Norm Dicks
Lloyd Doggett
Mike Doyle
Keith Ellison
Sam Farr
Al Green
Gene Green
Raul Grijalva
Luis Gutierrez
Phil Hare
Maurice Hinchey
Mazie Hirono
Paul Hodes
Rush Holt
Mike Honda
Darlene Hooley
Jay Inslee
Jesse Jackson
Sheila Jackson-Lee
Hank Johnson
Stephanie Tubbs Jones
Paul Kanjorski
Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick
Barbara Lee
John Lewis
Dave Loebsack
Carolyn Maloney
Betty McCollum
Jim McDermott
Greg Meeks
Mike Michaud
Brad Miller
Gwen Moore
Jim Moran
Grace Napolitano
Solomon Ortiz
Mike Pallone
Bill Pascrell
Ed Perlmutter
David Price
Charlie Rangel
Laura Richardson
Lucille Roybal-Allard
Bobby Rush
Jan Schakowsky
Bobby Scott
Jose Serrano
Carol Shea-Porter
Brad Sherman
Louise Slaughter
Hilda Solis
Pete Stark
Bart Stupak
Betty Sutton
Mike Thompson
John Tierney
Ed Towns
Nydia Velázquez
Mel Watt
Anthony Weiner
Peter Welch
Bob Wexler
Lynn Woolsey
David Wu
Albert Wynn