Vermont Votes to Impeach Bush/Cheney

When Vermont Governor Jim Douglas, a Republican with reasonably close ties to President Bush, asked if there was any additional business to be considered at the town meeting he was running in Middlebury, Ellen McKay popped up and proposed the impeachment of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

The governor was not amused. But McKay, a program coordinator at Middlebury College, pressed her case. And it soon became evident that the crowd at the annual meeting shared her desire to hold the president to account.

By an overwhelming voice vote, Middlebury called for impeachment.

So it has gone this week at town meetings across Vermont. There were confirmed reports that 36 towns had backed impeachment resolutions, and the number was expected to rise.

In addition to Governor Douglas's Middlebury, the town of Hartland, which is home to Congressman Peter Welch backed impeachment. So, too, did Jericho, the home of Gaye Symington, the speaker of the Vermont House of Representatives.

Organizers of the grassroots drive to get town meetings to back impeachment resolutions hope that the overwhelming support the initiative has received will convince [Reps] to introduce articles of impeachment against Bush and Cheney.

For the record, Middlebury says:

The oaths that the President and Vice President take binds them to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." The President and Vice President have failed to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution" in the following ways:

1. They have manipulated intelligence and misled the country to justify an immoral, unjust, and unnecessary preemptive war in Iraq.
2. They have directed the government to engage in domestic spying without warrants, in direct contravention of U.S. law.
3. They have conspired to commit the torture of prisoners, in violation of the Federal Torture Act and the Geneva Convention.
4. They have ordered the indefinite detention without legal counsel, without charges and without the opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention -- all in violation of U.S. law and the Bill of Rights.

[Excerpt of an article by John Nichols, The Nation]