What are they so frightened of?

Please explain to me what the Democrats are so afraid of. It's taken them ages to get around to trying for a contempt citation against Harriet Miers and Josh Bolton, and even now that they know that they have the votes, they're tiptoeing all around it:

Conyers said the contempt battle was not aimed at seeking criminal sanctions against Bolten and Miers personally, but would nonetheless surely spark a long legal fight over the reach of executive privilege.

“Remember – no handcuffs,” Conyers said in an interview Thursday, noting that contempt of Congress is a misdemeanor.

Hell, if the shoe were on the other foot, the Thuglicans would have held this vote months ago, and the Dems would be in the clink by now.

I really just don't get it. Every time they pussyfoot like this they just play into the "too weak to fight the commies/islamofascists/whatever" label that the Thuglicans love to pin on them. Now everyone is pinning it on them -- Jack Cafferty, Keith Olbermann, etc.