By an overwhelming voice vote, a town meeting in Middlebury, Vermont passed the following resolution yesterday. It’s short and to the point. I would only argue with the term “preemptive war,” for which I would substitute preventive war:

We the people have the power — and the responsibility — to remove executives who transgress not just the law, but the rule of law.

The oaths that the President and Vice President take binds them to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” The failure to do so forms a sound basis for articles of impeachment.

The President and Vice President have failed to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution” in the following ways:

1. They have manipulated intelligence and misled the country to justify an immoral, unjust, and unnecessary preemptive war in Iraq.

2. They have directed the government to engage in domestic spying without warrants, in direct contravention of U.S. law.

3. They have conspired to commit the torture of prisoners, in violation of the Federal Torture Act and the Geneva Convention.

4. They have ordered the indefinite detention without legal counsel, without charges and without the opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention — all in violation of U.S. law and the Bill of Rights.

When strong evidence exists of the most serious crimes, we must use impeachment — or lose the ability of the legislative branch to compel the executive branch to obey the law.

George Bush has led our country to a constitutional crisis, and it is our responsibility to remove him from office.

Late Tuesday night, there were confirmed reports that 36 Vermont towns had backed impeachment resolutions, and the number was expected to rise. The pressure is on for Congressman Peter Welch (D-VT) to introduce articles of impeachment.

Vermont already has a mechanism to force politicians to represent the people– we’ll see if it works. The rest of the country is writing letters and e-mails, to see if anybody wants to represent us in Washington.

Although pollsters are very reluctant to ask about impeachment, the few polls that have been taken indicate a national majority wants to impeach President Bush. A November 2005 Zogby poll found that 53 percent of Americans favored impeaching Bush for lying about Iraq. Another Zogby poll in January 2006 found 52 percent in favor of impeachment for the illegal domestic surveillance program. The media have ignored or downplayed these polling results, and there haven’t been any follow-up polls that I’m aware of. If you compare this with President Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky scandal, Gallup polled on impeachment beginning when the news first broke in January 1998.