Yes Impeach the president!!

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has spoken: President Bush must be impeached. It's a political earthquake that is shaking the establishment across the country. OK, maybe across San Francisco Bay, to Berkeley
.
Some critics of the president applauded the latest attempt by San Francisco's governing board to wade into Washington's affairs. Others rolled their eyes.
"This should certainly force a special convening of Congress," San Francisco's Democratic Mayor, Gavin Newsom, said sarcastically. "I'm surprised the president himself didn't shorten his trip to India to deal with it."

San Francisco this week became the biggest of the scattered left-coast bastions to pass such measures; Others include Santa Cruz, to the south, and Arcata, far to the north.
The resolution continues a long tradition of mutual antipathy between Bush and San Francisco, a city he has never visited as president.

"San Francisco is a fabulous place, but most Americans don't take their political cues from the city by the bay," said Republican National Committee spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt.
Some members of Congress — who actually have the power to impeach — were unaware of the vote days after it was taken. Others, like Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the liberal Democrat whose district includes much of San Francisco, urged the president's opponents to channel their anger into the 2006 congressional and 2008 presidential campaigns.

"If they don't like the policies of our country, I encourage everyone to mobilize to change who is in power in Washington, D.C.," Pelosi, a fierce Bush critic, said at a Washington news conference.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., was also unfazed by the supervisors' call. "It would seem to me that there is plenty to occupy them on civic issues," she said.

Rep. Barbara Lee, the Berkeley-Oakland Democrat who cast the lone vote against authorizing Bush to use force against terrorists after Sept. 11, favors the creation of a congressional committee to investigate pre-Iraq war intelligence and identify impeachable offenses.
"I appreciate the sentiment expressed by this resolution, and I look forward to a day soon when we will have a Democratic Congress that will take its oversight and accountability responsibilities seriously, and I encourage people to keep that issue in mind when they go to the polls in November," she said.

The supervisors' measure invokes the laundry list of charges against Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney: They misled the country into the war. They authorized torture. Their administration failed in its response to Hurricane Katrina. They authorized illegal domestic wiretapping.

"On a list of 4,000 or 5,000 things I'm focused on, it's not even on that list," Newsom said in an interview with The Associated Press. "That being said, I understand where it comes from, and that sentiment is certainly expressed in the resolution.

"It's an expression of frustration, and it's something the majority of San Franciscans probably feel," he said.

The vote fits in with a rich history of San Francisco supervisors trying influence U.S. policy, and beyond.

In the last year, the board has passed resolutions:
_Condemning the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
_Insisting that the U.S. government comply with international laws on the use of torture.
_Urging Congress to demand that Bush withdraw American troops from Iraq.
_Demanding that Fox News fire Bill O'Reilly. (Newsom signed that one.)
"I think it's an example to people around the country," said Bob Fertik, president of ImpeachPAC, a group that seeks the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. "A majority of Americans support impeachment. They're looking for leadership, and San Francisco's providing it."

In fact, it's impossible to gauge Americans' attitudes on impeachment. Mainstream pollsters have shied away from asking the question, saying they prefer to wait until talk of impeachment becomes "serious."

posted Thursday, 9 March 2006