SF's For Impeachment, But Not Nancy Pelosi

[muchacho]

The Nation -- San Francisco's Board of Supervisors is not the first local government body to pass a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, nor will it be the last.
But because San Francisco is one of America's best-known and best-loved cities --unless you're Fox News bloviator Bill O'Reilly, who last fall went on air to suggest landmarks there that terrorists might want to strike -- the news has drawn wider attention to the burgeoning movement for impeachment. It has also exposed another embarrassing rift between top Democrats and grassroots party activists and elected officials around the country.

Tuesday's 7-3 vote by San Francisco's Board of Supervisors for Democratic Supervisor Chris Daly's resolution urging California's Congressional representatives to pursue impeachment pushed no new limits. The bill of particulars discussed by Daly and other supervisors echoed concerns raised by U.S. Representative John Conyers (news, bio, voting record), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and the 26 House members currently cosponsoring Conyers' call for creation of a select committee to investigate administration preparations for war with Iraq before obtaining congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouragement and countenancing of torture, and retaliation against critics. That committee would be charged with, among other things, making recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.

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http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2281&ncid=2281&e=1&u=/thenation/20060302/cm_thenation/165205

[crikkett]

1. The part about Pelosi

from same article:

While a number of Bay Area representatives are among the cosponsors of the Conyers resolution -- including Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey -- the most powerful member of the House from region, and the primary representative of the city of San Francisco, is not on board. Indeed, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi seems to be almost as frightened by the word "impeachment" as the right-wing talk radio hosts who doth protest too much whenever it is mentioned.

Pelosi was confronted at a January town hall meeting in San Francisco by constituents who detailed administration misdeeds and chanted: "Impeach! Impeach!" Her response, according to a San Francisco Bay Guardian report, was initially a political one: "For those of you concerned about these issues, I urge you to channel your energies into the 2006 elections," she told the crowd.

Pressed on whether she would join senior Democrats in the California delegation -- such as Pete Stark and Maxine Waters -- in backing the House resolution to investigate matters related to impeachment, Pelosi answered that, "I do not intend to support Mr. Conyers's resolution."

Seeking to quiet the ensuing chorus of boos, Pelosi said, "We have a responsibility to try to bring this country together." According to Guardian report, one of the San Franciscans in the audience shouted back, "You have a responsibility to uphold the Constitution!"

[primavera]

5. The Nation's absolutely right

Ms. Pelosi does not have a responsibility to bring this country together if the only way to do so is to unite it under a banner of fascism, for instance. Unity, in and of itself, is not a valid goal. I'm sure the British considered Ghandi to be a royal pain in the ass; neither did the White Rose Society do all that great a job of "bringing the country together" under the Nazis; how kindly has history judged Vichy France for selling out? If, in her heart of hearts, Nancy doesn't believe that the administration's crimes rise to the level of impeachable offenses, well, I would respectfully disagree with her, but would respect her right to her opinion. But to suggest that "bringing the country together" somehow trumps her obligation to honor and uphold the laws of this country, that's just complete bullshit and I have no respect for that.

[xultar]

2. So, you want Cheney as your president. You must be joking.

[feelthebreeze]

3. As if he is not already? Simple enough to Impeach that traitor as well.

[primavera]

4. What I want is to discredit everything * stands for

Seeing the shrub leave office only to go out and make $50K/hour on the lecture circuit and continue to disseminate his catastrophic ideas isn't going to do the trick for me. The shrub and, by extension, his entire administration, including Cheney, needs to be publicly disgraced and humiliated. It's bad enough that we're having to re-live the sixteenth century; at the very least it needs to teach us a lesson about the perils of indulging in the shrub's type of thinking (or lack thereof, perhaps more to the point). Otherwise, he'll go the same path as Ronnie Raygun and his atrocities will be transmuted by the spin doctors into glories for the next generation of fascists to emulate.

Cheney already runs the administration. Do you seriously imagine the shrub is bright enough to have devised half the devastation his administration has wreaked upon this country and the world? A quarter? A tenth, even? Face it, Cheney already runs the show; if he were to assume Presidents Gore's and Kerry's usurped office from the shrub, at least he'd be forced out of the shadows into the light of day.