Left News and Views

Yesterday, “Impeachment Summer” was to begin with a nationwide effort to spell “impeach” on beaches, highway overpasses, the sides of buildings, downtown street corners and anywhere else where Americans might get the message.

Sounds like a joke, doesn’t it. After all, Nancy Pelosi said that when the Democrats took over Congress, impeachment wouldn’t be on the table. That said, I guess, the media in this country seem to be doing exactly what they did in the pre-Iraq debates. Those who tried to spread the message that there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction were shunted aside and labeled as part of a fringe group. Now, it seems, the media are pretending that a large-scale movement to impeach Bush and Cheney doesn’t exist.

I asked the question in my post yesterday, how much damage do Bush and Cheney have to do before they are held accountable? At the moment I posed that question, I was unaware of a group called a28.org (much as I and most of the country were unaware of moveon.org when I stumbled on their movement to keep the U.S. out of Iraq in 2002).

What rankles me is that practically every morning I read my local newspaper, the New York Times, Washington Post and, when I have the time, a host of other smaller papers and blogs from across the nation. I forget now how I finally stumbled across moveon.org, but if it weren’t for the blogs I never would have heard of a28.org.

A28 stands for the group’s target date of April 28 to launch impeachment summer by encouraging people all across the country to become aware of the constitutional right to seek the impeachment of a public official, that is to seek the removal of a government official without that official’s agreement.

To say a28.org has an impressive number of groups supporting it would be an understatement. Public opinion polls indicate that nearly 70 percent of Americans feel the Iraq was is going badly and want to get the troops out of harms way. It would appear that this 70 percent is amply represented in the groups that have signed on to support the impeachment summer.

Likewise, an impressive number of impeach spelling events were planned for yesterday all across the country, including a number of planes that would be towing impeachment banners over areas of high visibility. One was supposed to fly over the New Jersey Capital building in Trenton.

And yet, as with our early rallies with moveon.org, I have been unable to find any publicity that led up to the event nor have I been able to find any media this morning that covered the launch.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich said in announcing the articles of impeachment he submitted against Cheney that, “I do not stand alone. Millions of Americans are standing up for the Constitution and the rule of law.”

I believe that a28.org and its supporting organizations may demonstrate this summer that Kucinich is right on the mark.