President John Ashcroft: A Scenario
Ashcroft, or anyone, is three legal steps from being
appointed president.
By Ernest Partridge
OpEdNews.com
Within a year, Dick Cheney could, on his own, select John
Ashcroft as the forty-fifth President of the United States, without a
single citizen vote cast for or against Ashcroft. And it would all be
legal.
This event is not only possible, it may be more plausible than any of us
dare imagine. And yet, this consequence of a Bush-Cheney victory in
November is rarely if ever contemplated.
If, following his victory in two weeks, George Bush were to die in office,
or be impeached and convicted by the Senate, or resign, or be declared
incompetent by a majority of his cabinet and two-thirds of the Congress,
Dick Cheney would become President. He would then appoint a new Vice
President subject to confirmation by majority of both houses of Congress.
Then, if Cheney were to resign, the appointed Vice President would become
President.
That new President could be anybody, provided he is confirmed by the
Congress. I picked Ashcroft as an attention-grabbing “place marker.”
It might, instead, be Jeb Bush, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Pat Robertson, Rush
Limbaugh – anybody. Take your pick.
It’s in the Twenty-Fifth
amendment to the Constitution, ratified February 10, 1967. Two of the
three steps in this process have been carried out. Remember Vice President
Nelson Rockefeller? He was nominated by Gerald Ford and confirmed by
the Congress in December, 1974. Ford, of course, became President
upon the resignation of Richard Nixon.
But isn’t House Speaker Dennis Hastert the “third in line”?
Well, yes and no. If both offices of President and Vice President were to
be vacated before the above procedure could be carried out, then Hastert
would become President. Otherwise, the appointed Vice President would
become President.
Twice in recent history, the office of Vice President has been vacant:
following the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in April 1945, and following
the assassination of John Kennedy in November, 1963. The latter
event prompted the Congress and thirty-eight stage legislatures to ratify
the twenty-fifth amendment four years and three months after Kennedy was
murdered in Dallas.
How Might Bush Leave Office During a Second Term?
It is becoming ever-more apparent to those who dare
notice, that, as Garrison Keillor puts it, our President is a few bulbs
short of a full marquee. Moreover, as time goes on, more and more bulbs
seem to be blinking out.
Though Bush’s White House is the most sheltered and secretive in recent
history, ominous reports are leaking out.
Teresa Hampton of Capitol Hill
Blue has been an especially diligent investigator of Bush’s mental
condition. On
July 28, 2004, she wrote:
President George W. Bush is taking powerful
anti-depressant drugs to control his erratic behavior, depression and
paranoia, Capitol Hill Blue has learned.
The prescription drugs, administered by Col. Richard J. Tubb, the White
House physician, can impair the President's mental faculties and
decrease both his physical capabilities and his ability to respond to a
crisis, administration aides admit privately...
Bush's mental stability has become the topic of Washington whispers in
recent months. Capitol Hill Blue first reported
on June 4 about increasing concern among White House aides over the
President's wide mood swings and obscene outbursts....
One long-time GOP political consultant who - for obvious reasons - asked
not to be identified said he is advising his Republican Congressional
candidates to keep their distance from Bush.
"We have to face the very real possibility that the President of
the United States is loony tunes," he says sadly. "That's not
good for my candidates, it's not good for the party and it's certainly
not good for the country."
At Salon.com’s “War Room” Katherine
Mieszkowski has been keeping tabs on various reports on Bush’s
condition. For example, last Friday (October 15), she quoted the following
from Dr. W. Kendall Tonier, a Dallas anesthesiologist:
“Having watched the first two debates from start to
finish, I was looking forward to listening to a spirited debate between
Bush and Kerry. Unfortunately, I barely heard a word that was said.
Instead, I found myself staring at and concentrating on the President's
drooping mouth.
"As a physician and a professor, I tend to pick up on signs and
symptoms of physical problems better than most other people. I am highly
concerned with what I saw. The drooping left side of the President's
face, his mouth and nasolabial fold (the crease in the face running from
the nostril to the side of mouth) may be indicative of a recent stroke,
TIA (transient ischemic attack)) or, possibly botox injections. I
sincerely hope this was nothing more than botox injections.
Salon.com's
“War Room” remains an excellent “gateway” to other sites and
publications dealing with this issue.
Finally, last Sunday The Observer from the United Kingdom,
published Andrew Stephen’s disturbing article, “Has
Bush Lost His Reason?” It deserves a sober and careful
reading. Stephen writes:
[T]he momentous decision awaiting Americans is ...
whether they re-elect a man who, it is now clear, has become palpably
unstable.
The evidence has been before our eyes for some time, but
only during the course of this election campaign has it crystallised -
just in time, possibly, for the 2 November election. The 43rd US
President has always had a much-publicised knack for mangled syntax, but
now George Bush often searches an agonisingly long time, sometimes in
vain, for the right words. His mind simply blanks out at crucial times.
He is prone, I am told, to foul-mouthed temper tantrums in the White
House. His handlers now rarely allow him to speak an unscripted word in
public...
I have been examining videos of his first 1994 debate
with Ann Richards, the Governor of Texas, who he was about to supplant,
and of his 2000 debates with Al Gore. In his one and only debate with
Richards a decade ago, Bush was fluent and disciplined; with Gore, he
had lost some of that polish but was still articulate, with frequent
invocations of his supposed 'compassionate conservatism'.
It is thus hard to avoid the conclusion that Bush's
cognitive functioning is not, for some reason, what it once was. I am
not qualified to say why this is so. It would not be surprising if he
was under enormous stress, particularly after the 9/11 atrocities in
2001, and I gather this could explain much, if not everything...
A senior Republican, experienced and wise in the ways of
Washington, told me last Friday that he does not necessarily accept that
Bush is unstable, but what is clear, he added, is that he is now
manifestly unfit to be President.
This, too, is a view that is widely felt, but seldom
articulated and then only in private, within the Republican as well as
Democratic establishments in Washington.
Diagnosis at a distance is fallible, to be sure. But it is
all that the public will get, since we can be assured that if the results
of comprehensive first-hand examination confirm these observations, the
White House will see to it that we never hear of it.
So let’s reflect upon what we already know about Bush's behavior.
We know that Bush rarely gives press conferences, and when he does they
are either scripted or tightly controlled. During the current campaign, he
has spoken from scripts to pre-selected supporters who feed him soft, even
adoring, “questions.” And there is growing speculation that at
public appearances, Bush is prompted by a hidden listening device.
On only three occasions has Bush been obliged to stand alone, presumably
unassisted, and face unanticipated questions and the critical responses of
a worthy adversary. These, of course, were the Presidential Debates.
And we all know how those turned out for Bush: disaster!
Summing up: There is good reason to suspect, though not to conclude,
that George Bush is unfit to function in the office of President of the
United States, and that his deteriorating condition is such that he would
be unable to complete a second term.
However, the urgent question within the inner circle of his campaign is
not “can he last another four years?” It is “can he last another two
weeks?” If team Bush can successfully get past the election, or still
better the January inauguration, they can then begin to crank up the
Twenty-Fifth.
Now to the Scenario
Let's assume that the “inner circle” of Bush, Inc.
(presumably chaired by Dick Cheney), is well aware that their “front
man” will not last more than a few months into the second term. And so,
even now, they are planning The Succession. Cheney’s doctors have
told him, in no uncertain terms, that he cannot long survive the rigors of
the office. So they are now looking ahead for an appointed Vice President
and heir-apparent.
He or she could be anyone who fits the constitutional requirements:
natural-born citizen and over 35 years of age. At the insistence of the
Christian Right, to whom, after all, they owe the election, and of Tom
DeLay and the radical Congressional Republicans, without whom they can not
accomplish their program, they select John Ashcroft.
(Pick another successor if your prefer. The main point of this scenario is
to consider the process).
Step One: Bush leaves office. He might do so voluntarily by simply
resigning. If he refuses to leave, a majority of cabinet votes him out,
sends their declaration of the president’s incapacity to Congress,
whereupon a two-thirds majority of both houses sustain the cabinet’s
declaration. If, by that time, George Bush is certifiably Bonkers, those
super-majorities should pose no problem.
Step Two: Dick Cheney becomes President, and shortly thereafter,
nominates John Ashcroft to be the new Vice President. This time, only a
simple majority of both houses of Congress is required.
Step Three: Cheney resigns “for reasons of health.”
Hail to the Chief: President John Ashcroft.
Or, if not Ashcroft, then anyone else who Dick Cheney
might select, all by himself, subject to the approval of Tom DeLay's House
and Bill Frist's Senate.
All this in strict accordance with the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the
Constitution.
Such a dreadful prospect can, and must, be stopped
before it starts, by the collective will of the people of the United
States on November 2.
Copyright 2004, by Ernest Partridge
originally published in crisispapers. |
Enter
Your E-mail address to Receive OpEdNews
Newsletter