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 welcomed the latest attempt by San Francisco’s governing board to insert itself into national and world 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 and Arcata.
The resolution continues a long tradition of antipathy between Bush and San Francisco, a city he has never visited as president.
State politicians dismissive
“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.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the liberal Democrat and fierce Bush critic whose district includes much of San Francisco, urged the president’s opponents to channel their anger instead into the 2006 congressional and 2008 presidential campaigns.
And Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, herself a former mayor of San Francisco, said dismissively of San Francisco’s supervisors: “It would seem to me that there is plenty to occupy them on civic issues.”
The measure accuses Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney of misleading the country into the war, condoning torture, mishandling the response to Hurricane Katrina and authorizing illegal domestic wiretapping.
“On a list of 4,000 or 5,000 things I’m focused on, it’s not even on that list,” the mayor said in an interview. “It’s an expression of frustration, and it’s something the majority of San Franciscans probably feel.”
In the past 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.)
