'Teeming Left' and Proud of It

Brattleboro Reformer Editorial - 'Teeming Left' and Proud of It

Wednesday, May 16

John McClaughry, Vermont's most prominent conservative commentator, unleashed another one of his attacks on Windham County and its "hyperactive Impeachment Left," as he called us, in Saturday's Wall Street Journal.
He praised "conscientious" Democrats in the Vermont House who rejected a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

"The Vermont Impeachment Carnival of 2007 is over," declared McClaughry.

Except that it's not. On the same day that his piece hit the newsstands, more than 200 people gathered at Hartford High School to grill Congressman Peter Welch in an emotional two-hour meeting.

To Welch's credit, he praised the people who have worked for more than a year on the impeachment issue, and thanked them for calling attention to the Bush administration's many failures at home and abroad.

However, Welch still believes that impeachment would prolong the war in Iraq.

Few left the school feeling satisfied, save for the hope that Welch might hold another meeting on impeachment -- schedule permitting -- sometime in the future. But Welch got a firsthand look at the deep passion and commitment of the many Vermonters who want to see Bush and Cheney removed from office as soon as possible.

In between sniping at Windham County's "teeming left" and our support for "gay marriage, socialized medicine and shutting down the state's only nuclear power plant," McClaughry did manage to let the rest of America know one important thing about Vermont -- something that is lacking in the other 49 states.

"Vermonters have an abiding belief, nurtured in two centuries of town meetings, that every Vermonter deserves to be heard and every cause deserves an open vote," wrote McClaughry.

This is what has driven the impeachment movement, and every other political movement in Vermont. It took a lot of time for Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin and House Speaker Gaye Symington to come around, but eventually they gave the impeachment movement what it wanted -- a fair hearing of its concerns and a up-or-down vote.

Now it's Welch's turn. He gave Vermonters a fair chance to make their concerns heard, something that other congressmen around the nation probably wouldn't do on a Saturday afternoon. He has made it clear that he opposes impeachment, but Symington and Shumlin did also until the public pressure was unavoidable.

That's why McClaughry is wrong in saying the "impeachment carnival" is over. It's only just begun, and Vermont will continue to lead the way.

The war in Iraq won't end until the Bush administration is removed from power. Democrats think it's safer to let the electoral process run its course and win back the White House in 2008. This assumes that the 2008 election will be free of the vote-stealing and other assorted chicanery we saw in 2000 and 2004. It also assumes that there will be no "October Surprise" in the fall of 2008 that could shift support to the Republicans.

While the current Republican candidates for president are a motley and uninspiring lot, the Democrats shouldn't count on an easy victory in 2008. If they will not impeach Bush and Cheney, they must pick up the pace, investigate and put on the public records the extent of the incompetence, lies and corruption of the past six years. If their investigations follow through to their logical conclusion, it will become impossible not to impeach them.