No matter how you feel about a city known for its hippie culture or holier-than-thou aging baby boomers, you sort of have to love Takoma Park, Md. Commonly referred to as “The People’s Republic of Takoma Park” or “The Berkeley of the East”, the commuter suburb right on the border of the District is not only charmingly beautiful, but the people who live there wear their political proclivities on their collective sleeves so seriously they must employ an awfully good metaphorical tailor.
No doubt one of the best embodiments of this “we’re so liberal it hurts” ethos is the Takoma Park City Council, which has passed a number of notable resolutions over the past few decades, including its famous “nuclear free zone” declaration in 1983, another that allows non-U.S.-citizen residents to vote in their city elections, and another still forbidding the city from purchasing World Bank bonds. Today, the Post reports that the Council has passed a new resolution in keeping with the spirit of the city: they voted to call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
The resolution, passed 5-0, calls for the city to lobby the Montgomery County Council, the county executive, the Maryland legislature and the governor asking them to adopt similar resolutions. As noted in the Post article, Takoma Park now joins a growing number of other municipalities that have passed an impeachment resolution, including San Francisco, Detroit, Berkeley, and of course, pretty much every city in Vermont.
Increasingly, calls for impeachment of the administration are being taken more seriously, at least in the blogosphere. Despite Washington D.C.’s own historically very liberal leanings, we have a hard time imagining the D.C. Council taking up a similar measure, considering the delicate nature of our feudal status with the Lord on the White House Manor — but if they did, would you support it?
Photo of a stop sign in Takoma Park by DottieboBottie
