This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Rocky Anderson is the new Cindy Sheehan.
Salt Lake City's mayor is becoming a national anti-war protester, just like the Texas resident who lost her son in the Iraq conflict. Anderson spoke at a rally in Washington, D.C., last month and he will testify Thursday in support of a Washington state resolution urging Congress to investigate and, possibly, impeach President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
"I'm interested in doing absolutely everything we can to heighten the awareness of the American people of how this president and his administration have brought our country to probably the lowest moral point in our history," the Democratic mayor said Tuesday, saying Bush has violated constitutional rights and international treaties. "If impeachment is not appropriate under these circumstances, I can't imagine a case where it would be."
Democratic Washington Sen. Eric Oemig is sponsoring the impeachment resolution and invited Anderson to speak. The resolution asks Congress to see if there is sufficient evidence to charge Bush and Cheney, and if so, to impeach them.
"Washingtonians want to know how we got into Iraq, and they want to ensure that something like this never, ever happens again," Oemig said in a news release when he introduced the resolution earlier this month.
The resolution accuses the president of providing Congress and Americans "distorted" intelligence to make the case for the Iraq invasion, squandering taxpayer money on the war, conducting electronic surveillance of Americans without warrants and using the ''enemy combatant'' status to "strip American citizens of their constitutional rights."
"Such offenses, if committed, are subversive of constitutional government to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury" of Americans, the resolution states.
Enid Greene, chairwoman of the Utah Republican Party, said the allegations fall short of the legal standard for impeachment, and she called Anderson's participation "embarrassing."
"If he has evidence the president has committed high crimes and misdemeanors, I would join him in calling for impeachment. That is not the case," she said. "I would expect a lawyer [like Anderson] would know better. Impeachment isn't just when you think, 'Gee, I don't like what the president has done.' "
As for the specific charges in the impeachment resolution, Greene said intelligence gathering is an art and "sometimes, regrettably, we get it wrong."
This is "just another way for Rocky to burnish his liberal credentials and give him some ink," she said. "The more outlandish he is the more attention he gets."
Anderson will be one of two official pro-impeachment speakers during Thursday's hearing. Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Army Reserves colonel who resigned from the U.S. diplomatic corps in March 2003 in protest of the Iraq war, also will speak.
The mayor caught the attention of anti-war groups last August after his second Bush protest in as many years. Thousands cheered Anderson for calling the commander in chief a "dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights-violating president" whose time in office would "rank as the worst presidency our nation has ever had to endure."
The president, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, were in town that week to speak to the American Legion national convention.
Linda Boyd, director of Washington for Impeachment, which has been pushing the resolution and suggested Oemig include Anderson, said she knew about the mayor long before the protest. "We know that Rocky is a champion of democracy."
While another state's impeachment resolution has nothing to do with Salt Lake City government, Anderson defended his participation, saying it is viewed as a "credit to our city."
Some states are considering impeachment petitions, according to a Web site promoting them, but Anderson holds no hope that crimson Utah would debate such a resolution, predicting it will be the last state "to finally wake up" to Bush's transgressions.
The mayor said Tuesday he still was working on his Thursday speech - and expects it to be lengthy. "It turned out to be quite a treatise. Where do you stop?"
Rocky vs. Bush
* The hearing:
The hearing on the impeachment resolution will start Thursday at 4:30 p.m. MST before a Washington state Senate committee. An impeachment rally, in which Mayor Rocky Anderson will participate, will precede the hearing.
* The resolution:
Read the resolution's text at http://www.leg.wa.gov/pub/billinfo/2007-08/Pdf/Bills/Senate%20Joint%20Memorials/8016-Impeachment-Bush%20&%20Cheney.pdf
* Who's paying for Anderson's trip?
The grass-roots group Washington for Impeachment.