Garrison Keillor's brave call (see the post below) set me to thinking. Months ago, I would have argued that, for tactical reasons, we should wait until after the congressional elections to start an "Impeach Bush" drive. But tactical considerations aren't everything. This movement springs from a visceral sense of outrage. We must do this thing -- or at least try to do this thing -- because we can do no other.
Suppose the House changes hands. Suppose Dubya is impeached and removed. Suppose Cheney is too. Who becomes president?
Nancy Pelosi. Of San Francisco. I like the sound of that!
9 comments:
'Nancy Pelosi'
A female president: haw haw. Should I mention Margaret Thatcher (UK), Benazir Bhutto (Pakistan), Angela Merkel (Germany)? All were/are head-of-states, all female. Some better, some worse. President Arroyo of the Phillipines (yes yes, also female) just declared the state of emergency there.
Tip: fix current American politics. This goes beyond the gender of your hoped president.
(Oh, America: please grow up.)
JOE!! do you recall some months ago my fantasy of just this, taking congress in 05, a double impeachment, which would place the new dem speaker pelosi in the white house, who would then expose all the incriminating documents against the prez, the dick, rummy, condi, et al, not to mention both roberts (all those reagan era docs to do with iran-contra) and alito (all that lying)....
yup, a fantasy. but such dreams are the stuff revolutions are made of.
oops. typo; i of course meant '06 above.
Anyone care to make it interesting?
Here's my guess (updated from the last time I posted a prediction)...Cheney: no later than March 31st. Bush: no later than June 30th. I might put down some exact dates if others respond.
Nancy Pelosi DOES NOT become president if Bush and Cheney are impeached. This has come up and been corrected countless times at DU. This confuses the line of succession with what happens after impeachment. The line of succession only tells us what happens if the president, vice president, etc., all die or are removed simultaneously. But the 25 Amendment also tells us that if there is a vacancy in the office of VP, the president chooses a successor with the consent of a majority vote in Congress.
Presumably, just as when the Nixon administration had to go, the corrupt VP was removed first. Because Congress had basically veto power, they forced Nixon to choose the popular, moderate and bipartisan Congressman Jerry Ford as VP. Then when Nixon was removed, Jerry Ford became president, and Ford chose Rockefeller as his VP.
It is inconceivable that an impeachment process would remove Bush first, allowing the even more guilty Cheney to become VP. So Cheney would be impeached first, and Congress would tell Bush who he could and could not get through a vote, everyone being aware that the appointment of a new VP would be tantamount to the appointment of the next president. My guess is that Bush would be forced to appoint McCain as VP. Then Bush is out and McCain, or whoever, becomes president.
Even if through some evil miracle Bush is impeached before Cheney and Cheney becomes president, that creates a vacany in the office of VP, which means that Cheney appoints a VP with the consent of Congress. Then Cheney would be impeached and removed and the appointed VP becomes president.
The same outcome prevails. The Speaker only becomes president if the president and VP die or are removed so quickly that the president has no time to appoint a VP.
HamdenRice from DU
Thanks for elucidating that, Hamden. Seems to me that if Bush and Cheney were elected at the same time, they can be impeached at the same time.
If not...my suspicion would be that Congress would tell W to choose McCain, the only Republican with some cross-party appeal. I'm not a McCain fan, not by a long shot, but he'd be a hell of a lot better than what we have.
At any rate, it's hard to imagine how we could get either guy out by impeachment, with a Senate so clueless and gutless that it voted 89-10 in favor of making the Patriot Act permanent. As lll says, this situation may change after the fall elections. If they are held as scheduled...
Democrats should run this year on the PROMISE that they will begin impeachment proceedings. A real debate would ensue, and I think it's the dems only chance at winning.
Paranoifest! Line of succession weirdness in Rumsfeld's Pentagon. I thought you would enjoy this Joe.
The line of succession in any organization, as I tried to show, only is relevant in a disaster when several office holders die or are removed simultaneously, or at least before replacements can be appointed.
Back in December, Rumsfeld changed the line of succession at the Pentagon. He moved the uniformed heads of the services down below a group of civilian officials.
But this would only be applicable if the top leadership of the Defense Department were all simultaneously killed or removed. Hence Sourcewatch calls it the "doomsday line of Pentagon succession".
Maybe Rumsfeld was doing this in anticipation of a worst case scenario of a terrorist attack on the Pentagon. But this seems so unlikely. Perhaps then this is purely symbolic. But worrying about this just seems to be a useless activity for the DOD leader.
On the other hand, maybe Rumsfeld was doing this because he was signalling the top brass that in the event of a coup, the uniformed officers would have to take out a much larger group of civilians before the uniformed officers would gain control of the Pentagon.
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