Code Pink tea party keeps up pressure on Pelosi

Members of Code Pink hold a tea party for Speaker Nancy Pelosi on April Fool's Day
outside Pelosi's Pacific Heights mansion.
Photo(s) by Luke Thomas

By Luke Thomas

April 2, 2007

Members of the women's peace group Code Pink staged an April Fool's Day tea party outside Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Pacific Heights mansion yesterday.

The afternoon event was organized to pressure Pelosi to put articles of impeachment against President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney back on the table, to bring U.S. troops home by the end of 2007, and to put back into legislation a requirement that Bush seek congressional approval before moving against Iran.

Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin said of the event: "Today is April 1st and Nancy Pelosi invited us to come for a tête à tête about how to end the war, and stop the next one. So, we're here to talk to her. Unfortunately, it looks like she's in the Middle East right now so we're talking to her lookalike here.

"We will also be talking to eachother about how we increase the pressure to get the troops home by the end of the year at the latest, to make sure there's no war with Iran, and to put impeachment where it belongs which is right on the table."

Pelosi took impeachment off the table as early as May 2006 in the runup to the November general election, against the will of Pelosi's San Francisco constituents who passed a non-binding resolution (Proposition J) calling on the impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

Asked what Benjamin believes is the reason why Pelosi led the charge to take impeachment off the table, Benjamin said: "I think they listened to their advisors too much and their advisors have said to them impeachment is devisive; it will distract from the upcoming presidential election; the American people want people who are positive and have a positive message uniting the country, not dividing it. But I don't think that's true. The polls show that over 50 per cent of the people think we were misled into war, that impeachment is a legitimate process for holding the president and vice president accountable.

"So we are really here to say impeachment is in the constitution for a reason and that, if indeed we were misled into this war, that is a high crime and misdemeanor that fits the definition of impeachment."

Commenting on current hostilies with Iran, Benjamin said: "It's also a very dangerous time with Iran with the 15 British soldiers who are being held by the Iranians. We'd like to see those soldiers set free, but we also want Nancy Pelosi to put back into legislation something she took out which is that this president cannot attack Iran without first going to congress.

"We want congress to be very clear that the American people don't want another war, we want to avoid any confrontation with Iran and the differences should be settled through peaceful means.

"The conservative blue dog democrats said the only way they would agree to her legislation is if they took the amendment that the president couldn't attack Iran without first going to congress.

"It's all quite silly because really the constitution gives congress the right to declare war but the president of course has defied that in the case of Iraq and needs to be reminded in the case of Iran. So Nancy Pelosi took it out and we want it put back in."

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