More than 70 cities and 14 state Democratic parties have urged impeachment or investigations that could lead to impeachment. The most common charge is that Bush manipulated intelligence to lead the country into the Iraq war. Other charges include spying on Americans and torturing suspected terrorists in violation of U.S. and international law.
Steven Thomma writes for McClatchy about yet another division between "inside the Beltway" and the "real world." Calls for the impeachment of both Bush and Cheney are getting louder across the country even as Washington appears reluctant to deal with the issue.
Most recently, the Massachusetts Democratic Party voted to push impeachment of both men. The 2,500 state convention delegates voted almost unanimously against Cheney; the vote against Bush was closer.
Massachusetts' Democratic Party thus joined 13 others on the investigate-or-impeach bandwagon, including: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
Among the cities and towns, the largest and most recent is Detroit, where the city council voted 7-0 this month to urge Congress to impeach Bush and Cheney for "intentionally misleading Congress and the public regarding the threat from Iraq in order to justify the war."
This will give us a real sense of whether members of Congress, when they go back to their districts to listen to their constituents, are actually responding to voters. One thing is for sure: the constituents of Congressional leaders Reid, Pelosi, and Conyers expect to be heard.
It's noteworthy that impeachment pressure is coming from the home states of the two Democratic leaders in Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
Pelosi said last year that impeachment "is off the table." Under the Constitution, the House impeaches; the Senate then decides whether to convict and remove from office.
It's also interesting that one of the resolutions came from Detroit, home to Rep. John Conyers, who as the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee would lead any impeachment hearings.
