During last year’s campaign season, Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared impeachment to be “off the table.” But everybody knew she meant impeaching Pres. Bush was off the table. It’s not too great a stretch to say that she didn’t mean it was off the table for Vice Pres. Cheney.

Now Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is proposing just that — impeaching Cheney:

Earlier this week, according to media reports Kucinich emailed House colleagues with a note that began, “I intend to introduce Articles of Impeachment with respect to the conduct of Vice President Cheney.”

Kucinich put the plan on hold after the Virginia Tech shooting massacre. But the general expectation is that he will raise the issue anew after a decent interval.

Cheney’s office sees no grounds for impeachment. “The vice president has had nearly 40 years of government service and has done so in an honorable fashion,” says Megan McGinn, Cheney’s deputy press secretary.

McGinn got that line out with a straight face.

Americans of who are not on the vice president’s payroll are inclined to recognize Cheney’s manipulation of intelligence prior to the Iraq War, his active role in going after administration critic Joe Wilson and Wilson’s wife Valarie Plame, and his ongoing links to the Halliburton war-profiteering cartel as arguments against giving the vice president any prizes for “honorable” government service.

Impeachment activists have in recent months pushed an “Impeach Cheney First” message, in part to counter the complaint that impeaching Bush would put an even darker figure in charge. Of course, going after the most powerful vice president in history has consequences, as well. In the unlikely event that Cheney were removed from office, one line of reasoning goes, Bush would for the first time find himself in charge.