Bush impeachment may be on Boulder City Council agenda

America's smartest city likes to elect window lickers:

Boulder's elected leaders are expected to decide next week whether to draft and vote on a resolution calling for the impeachment of President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

For the past few weeks, activists have been showing up at Boulder City Council meetings, carrying signs, handing out "impeach" pins and asking City Council members to take up such a resolution. Similar measures have passed in cities across the country, including Detroit and Telluride.

Not Telluride!

Liz Robinson, one of the organizers of the effort, said people hoping to see impeachment proceedings have given congressional Democrats -- who won a majority in the fall of 2006 -- plenty of time to act.

But since they haven't, she said, locally elected officials should take up the slack."Whether or not it's the city's business directly, like potholes, I feel this affects all of us," she said. "We're the ones who are paying the taxes to support this administration's depredations, especially the war."

Impeachment proceedings would be worth doing even if they only put the last few months of Bush's eight years in office at risk, Robinson said.

The group appears to have some support among the City Council, although it's not clear if it has the five votes it would take to get a resolution drafted and subsequently debated. City Councilman Macon Cowles wrote in a memo to his colleagues that he'll likely make a motion at the Feb. 19 meeting asking that a resolution be drafted.

Naturally, lots of commenters support the impeachment of Chimperor McHeilChrist, but even they frequently urge the city council to get a grip (often followed by "you morons"). Unfortunately:

It wouldn't be the first time the City Council has weighed in on matters far outside the city's physical boundaries. In 2006, the council approved a resolution calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, and in 2003, the council passed a resolution opposing the invasion.

Deputy Mayor Crystal Gray, who helped draft the 2006 resolution, said Boulder has a tradition of debating big-picture issues.

"I'm a believer that the council should be responsive at the level of local government to issues that the residents raise, just like the Iraq war resolution," she said.

Even Molderer Boulderer:

Students vehemently opposed to multi-millionaire oilman Bruce Benson becoming the University of Colorado's next president wheeled 6-foot-tall, wooden oil rigs around the campus Monday, staging a protest in advance of the controversial figure's scheduled return to Boulder today.

Ethnic studies majors minoring in shop.

("window lickers" via the impeccably cancer-free Tim Blair)

Update: Benson tells CU profs he won't meddle:

Bruce Benson assured faculty members again this evening that he will not interfere with tenure or academic freedom if he is named University of Colorado president.

Under intense but polite questioning by professors, the Denver oilman said he would work hard to raise money for CU, but would leave control of academic issues mostly to the faculty and the campus chancellors.

An important question:

[Benson] was twice asked whether he would support the teaching of creationism or intelligent design. He said no.

No window licker, he! Even more important:

Benson told the professors he would support research on climate change, a major study area at CU. Some professors have questioned him about that because of his connection to the oil industry.

"This is a serious problem. It [sic] something we do have to address," Benson said.