A place to push impeachment

July 5, 2007

A place to push impeachment

If President Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney were ever to be impeached, their foes could cite this Independence Day as a milestone — the day that the nation's first "impeachment headquarters" opened its doors in a storefront near the Beverly Center.

"This is an impeachment 4th of July," Byron De Lear, a Green Party activist, said Wednesday. He called removing Bush and Cheney "a patriotic duty to restore the integrity of the United States."

Those assembled cited various Bush actions or policies, including "lies that led the U.S. into war."

They also said that Bush--Cheney policies precipitated torture, illegal spying on American citizens, and the curtailment of privacy and civil rights in the name of fighting terrorism.

The latest irritant was the president's decision to commute the prison sentence of former Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, whom a jury convicted of obstructing justice.

"Isn't it ironic that Paris Hilton will spend more days in jail than Libby?" said De Lear.