We were watching “Meet the Press” this morning. Tim Russert was interviewing two journalists about the 2008 election.

You know, the one that’s happening 20 months from now?

The race has been in full swing for two months, of course, and it’s utterly ridiculous. Bill Clinton didn’t declare his candidacy for president until early October 1991, four and a half months before the New Hampshire primary. But what’s amazing isn’t that the candidates are declaring so early – candidates have declared this early in past elections. What’s amazing is that the media is covering the race so extensively so early.

A majority of people wish the Bush presidency were over. Iraq is a mess, Bush won’t budge, and there doesn’t seem to be anything anyone can do about it.

Bob Herbert recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times lamenting the fact that people are obsessing over Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears instead of focusing on our country’s real problems. The Times printed several letters in respose, and two of them left me so depressed. The first:

What are we supposed to do? I spent a lot of time paying attention to all the ”real news” of the world. I got angry, and I acted on that anger. I engaged in intense debates with family and friends, I signed petitions, I marched in protests. And we still went to war, there is still little support for mothers and children, the minimum wage still isn’t a living wage, Americans still produce 25 percent of the world’s pollution.

And then I decided I didn’t want to live my life angry all the time if it wasn’t going to do any good, if no one would listen. I still pay attention to the ”real news,” but then I turn to entertainment to forget it all, because I feel helpless to make a difference.

The second:

It’s not that people don’t want to know — they know.

But when there is absolutely nothing we can do about it, when appeals to elected officials result in no action, when marches on Washington are obstructed and ignored, when you have an administration that seems bent on instilling terror into the hearts of its citizens and promising in vain to keep them safe while mindlessly destroying both the infrastructure and the reputation of the country, well, hey, Anna Nicole and Britney remind us that at least we’re not like them and that there remains a tiny percentage of our lives over which we do have control.

Depressing.

The House could impeach Bush and Cheney – a simple majority is all that’s needed. But the Senate would never convict either of them; that would require 67 out of 100 votes, and no Republican will want to make Nancy Pelosi the president. (But maybe they could impeach Cheney first.)

If this were a parliamentary system, there could be a vote of no confidence and Bush could be replaced. But in our stable American system, we’re slaves to the calendar. Like the Manhattan street grid imposing its cold logic on the organic Manhattan environment, our presidential elections descend upon us from above every four years, our constitutional gods completely uninterested in our short-term desires. The price of stability is that we’re stuck. (Okay – stability and a gutless Congress.)

Even the media wishes it were all over. And that’s true regardless of journalists’ political leanings. Bush is boring, because he’s rock-stubborn; there’s no excitement in covering things that don’t change.

And so, for the next year, we’re going to watch each new flavor-of-the-month candidate rise and fall. This month it’s Obama and Giuliani; eventually it’ll be Edwards and McCain and Romney and Brownback and so on, until (as in 2003-04 with Kerry) we end up right back where we started, when Clinton and McCain get the nominations.

Meanwhile: 687 days and counting. Sigh.