Dropping the First Shoe

by Dave Lindorff
OpEdNews
April 25, 2007 at 07:31:34

Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, has dropped the first impeachment shoe, filing a bill calling for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Kucinich, defying the leadership of the Democratic Party, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who have been struggling mightily to prevent impeachment from occurring during the waning years of the Bush presidency, on Tuesday filed three articles of impeachment, claiming that Cheney violated his oath of office and the Constitution, for deceiving Congress and the American people about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, about alleged but nonexistent links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, and finally for making threats to invade Iran.

The bill now goes to the House Judiciary Committee, where Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and the rest of the committee's members will have to decide whether go hold formal hearings on the charges.
The move by Kucinich comes as impeachment is gaining ground among the broader public. Today, the Vermont House of Representatives will hold a floor debate and vote on a resolution calling for Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against both President Bush and Cheney. That measure would be a companion to a similar resolution passed last week by Vermont's state Senate. If the state's lower house passes its version, Vermont will be the first state in history to pass a bi-cameral resolution on impeachment.