City Council of Arcata, CA Urges Impeachment

Last night the City Council of Arcata passed a resolution urging impeachment proceedings against Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

The resolution lists a series of allegedly impeachable offenses, including “the crime of misleading the American people and Congress into waging an unnecessary and brutal war in Iraq,” “the criminal failure of the president to respond adequately to the Hurricane Katrina disaster,” “torturing human beings in violation of the Geneva Convention” and “ordering the secret surveillance of American citizens.”

Councilman Dave Meserve and Councilwoman Harmony Groves penned the resolution that passed 3-2 Wednesday, joined by Councilman Paul Pitino, with Mayor Michael Machi and Councilman Mark Wheetley dissenting.

”All elected officials swear to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” Meserve said. “This obligates us to act when the president violates the Constitution. We hope that other cities will join us in demanding the impeachment of Bush and Cheney.”

They've been leading the impeachment fight for months now and clearly hope that it will be taken up by a member of California's Congressional delegation. That's not terribly likely, especially seeing as the backlash against Clinton's impeachment arguably was responsible for off-year Congressional gains for Democrats, sky-high approval ratings for Clinton as he left office and the election of his wife to the Senate. But Barbara Boxer deftly floated the I-word recently after John Dean (of Watergate fame) said that Bush was the first president to admit to committing impeachable offense when he confessed to having authorized the NSA to spy on US citizens.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) sent a letter on Monday to four unidentified presidential scholars, asking them whether they think Bush's authorization of warrantless domestic spying amounted to an impeachable offense.

Boxer wrote that her interest was sparked after former Nixon White House counsel John Dean said the surveillance order was an impeachable offence.

"I take very seriously Mr. Dean's comments, as I view him to be an expert on presidential abuse of power. I am expecting a full airing of this matter by the Senate in the very near future," she wrote.

I'm not deluding myself that this guy's gonna get impeached; hell, I'm not even convinced it's the right thing for Democrats to pursue right now. But it can only help to subtly poke Bush with the impeachment stick whenever we can.