'Impeach Bush' vote backfires on ski resort

'Impeach Bush' vote
backfires on ski resort
'Hundreds' cancel trips to Colorado,
homeowner threatens to move out

Some of the ski fans who have patronized Telluride, Colo., now are calling the ritzy resort "the land of radical liberals" and canceling planned vacations there because the town board voted to approve an ordinance calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

One ski club of 175 people already has made plans to go elsewhere, another skier has threatened to sell his home there and another critic predicted the town soon would bow to Mecca.

"It's huge, unbelievable," said Telluride Mayor John Pryor. "Ski groups are canceling for the winter. Hundreds of people are bailing. The (town) website is flooded with people saying they're canceling their vacations here."

The storm of protest followed the town board's recent vote on the impeachment issue, according to the Denver Post. The report said among the labels being pinned on the town include: Moonbats, lunatics, boobs, bong smokers and left-bots.

Those descriptions started arriving after the Telluride town board became the first in Colorado to formally approve the call for impeachment.

"In a country where a July poll found as many as 46 percent of Americans favor impeachment, Neil Young is singing "Let's Impeach the President," and online stores are selling "impeach" baby bibs, wall clocks and doggie shirts, Telluride is getting hit with a surprising amount of anti-impeachment venom," the Post report said.

"This kind of backlash? I don't know of it happening anywhere else," David Swanson, a spokesman for Impeach PAC, a group that now lists more than 180 entities across the country that have passed impeachment measures, told the newspaper.

Some of those other locations are predictable: San Francisco, West Hollywood and Chapel Hill, N.C. In Colorado, Nederland's town board also considered a similar plan, but rejected it.

Telluride's elected offices are filled by Libertarians, Green Party members and Democrats. They describe their town as "open and accepting," even if visitors don't see it that way.

Thom Carnevale, the resident who collected 100 petition signatures and presented them to the board on the impeachment issue, said since the "right-wing" campaign began, support for his effort actually has grown.

The charter of the home-rule town called for the board either to endorse the petition request or put in on November's ballot for voters.

"We would never have dreamed this up on our own, but we're proud to respond to our electorate," said board member Andrea Benda.

Readers on a newspaper comment blog had a range of opinions:

"Go Telluride!!!!!!" said one ... "at least one town knows whats best!"

Another said, "Hey Telluride...get back to your lattes, jazz festivals, celebrity sightings, wine tastings, and poetry contests and leave the heav[y] lifting of real world politics to those of us in the real world."

It's not the first time Telluride has jumped into a controversy. In 2005, WND reported a tourism promoter posted an online warning to potential visiting families that Telluride's "Gay Ski Week" could offend them.

Al Heirich reported then officials at Telluride Ski Resort immediately demanded he remove his warning, as well as remove links from his site to theirs.