This article is one of a series that hopes to keep a spotlight on John Nirenberg’s courageous march on Washington….

Beginning his journey in Boston on December 1^st, of Brattleboro Vermont has closed in on the 400-mile mark Thursday in a long, sometimes treacherous, walk lasting more than a month that’s meant to promote the impeachment of President Bush.

John Nirenberg is nearly within reach of his goal: shuffling into the Capitol office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi where he intends to urge her to stop obstructing impeachment hearings against and Vice President which she and other Congressional leaders have very suspiciously “taken off the table”.

On Thursday, Nirenberg was about 125 miles away from Capitol Hill — a trip of about two hours by car — and expects to reach his destination on Jan. 12, averaging about 15 miles a day.

After viewing a film on the Constitution while in Philadelphia this Sunday, Nirenberg motioned across the street to Independence Hall and recited the words of Benjamin Franklin who emerged from the same building and was asked, "Well, Doctor, what have we got - a Republic or a Monarchy?" Franklin replied, "A Republic, if you can keep it."

John readily admits to a lifetime of political complacency, but something happened while sitting comfortably on the sidelines. He witnessed President Bush and Vice President Cheney chip away at the very foundation of our “Republic” and he knew it was time to act. With members of Congress failing to abide by their sworn oath to defend the Constitution, Nirenberg has taken to pounding the pavement in a public awareness campaign to save it, hence the march on Washington.

Our republic was formed as a government in which the people were supposed to have an impact on who our head of state is; not a monarch!

What exists today is a President who declares, with a stroke of a pen, that he can ignore laws set forth by the legislative branch to do such things as revoke our constitutionally guaranteed right to habeas corpus, claim the right to unilaterally decide what constitutes torture and  any other laws that supports his self-centered agenda.

We have a President who, along with his Vice President, through deceit and contrary to the laws of our land has declared a preemptive war on a sovereign nation. We have a President who informs the public that with executive powers not granted to him by the Constitution and against federal law, he has assumed the right to invade the privacy of American citizens by spying on them without a court order.

To add insult to injury, we find ourselves with a Congress that works in tandem with a power hungry executive branch by not holding it accountable through the tool of impeachment that is mandated and written into the Constitution six times. It has become painfully clear that we have, indeed, failed to keep our “Republic.”

The weather has been brutal, yet it’s all worth the chance to deliver his message to Congress, which he feels has failed to protect the Constitution from a president who’s overstepped legal limits regarding the Iraq war, detainee torture and domestic surveillance.

"Regardless of the outcome, I certainly have satisfied my conscience," John Nirenberg said.

Portions of this article attributed to Cheryl Biren-Wright and Evan Lehmann