That Nancy Pelosi could become the first female president of the United States next year is one of the longest long shots going in the current political environment. Nonetheless, it remains a technical possibility — and even a practical reality — if President Bush and Vice President Cheney were to decide to tough it out to the end of their impeachments in a Democratic controlled Congress in 2007.
We first wrote about this last June, back when the idea that impeaching President Bush and Vice President Cheney was all but unthinkable except to a few liberal extremist Bush haters.
Now about half of country would favor impeachment if there was reasonable cause to believe the president has broken the law. (And Bush has broken at least 750 laws, so take your pick.) And about a third favor impeaching the president based on what they know now, which is 7 percentage points higher than the number who wanted to impeach President Clinton in 1998.
I was reminded of my musings a year ago about possibility that Nancy Pelosi could become president when I saw this article Sunday at Ice Station Tango:
Impeachment is meaningless unless both Bush and Cheney go down. If Cheney stays in place the goal of the impeachment movement seems that much more daunting. Two impeachments?
Keeping Cheney is the equivalent of the Republican party going all in. If Bush and Cheney are impeached and removed, then the Presidency likely falls to Nancy Pelsoi. Convenient for a Rovian administration that has already successfully smeared her. Impeachment would then be a choice between someone Republicans call an “uber-liberal” and “staying the course. Could be a problematic frame for the impeachment movement.
If Democrats re-take the House this fall (and that is a big “if”), Pelosi will become the first female Speaker of the House. In that position, she would also be third in line to become president.
If Democrats also take control of the Senate (an even bigger “if”), the odds that the president and vice president will be impeached become all but a dead cinch.
Assuming all those conditions fall in place, we might expect that Bush and Cheney would follow the course set by the previously most corrupt presidential administration: Cheney would resign, as Nixon’s vice president, Spiro Agnew did, and the party elders would force a new vice president onto Bush without consulting him — someone like John McCain.
With McCain in place as VP, Bush would be forced to resign, clearing the way to the McCain ascendancy.
But President Bush is not a student of history, as we have learned, and everything we have seen about his temperament indicates he would hold out until the end — that he and Cheney would fight the impeachment every step of the way, stubbornly refusing to give testimony and evidence, ignoring the entreaties of the party elders to do as Nixon did and fall on their swords, only to become the first president and vice president to be removed from office by impeachment.
Which scenario sounds more like them: falling on their swords for the good of their party and nation — or toughing it out to the bitter end, even though they know they are guilty?
- Topic: News & Comment
- Topics: Impeachment
THE ABOVE HYPOTHISIS SEEMS TO LEAD TO THIS:
The democrats win both houses.
Both Bush and Cheney get impeached.
Nancy meets with an accident, deadly type, and the circus goes on?
At this stage it is too unpredictable for any reasonable prognostication, leaving mostly wishful thinking and little else…
Yeah, I buy all that. I’m sure Rove has this all played out. I just hope his sorry ass watches it from prison.
I often wonder how dedicated this bunch is to keeping power. Maybe the impeachment leads to dictatorship–or whatever they’ll call it.
Thanks for the reference. You explained tyhat better than I did.
J
Now that we have won both houses, it is game on !!! bush and cheney are an insult to every hard working member of the middle class … We are not going to let them off this time .. no wave goodby and helicopter takeoff … go directly to jail !!!
they both have blood on their hands !!!
Good post. There doesn’t seem to be any momentum directly toward impeachment right now, five months after the Democrats took back the hill. But then, the break-in at the Watergate Hotel didn’t point that way, either.
We do have the case of some missing emails and a not-surprisingly inept and corrupt Attorney General . . . never know how hight that one goes, but it can’t get a lot higher or we’re in big trouble.
I could see the White House doing just as you describe. But I will see your “suicide pact” and raise you a neo-fascist mini tantrulution (tantrum+revolution) led by the usual suspects: Limbaugh, Fox, et al.
Imagine you are an uninformed, talk-radio-listening, still-believing-Saddam-did-911, unapologetic flag-waver: and San Francisco Liberal Nancy Pelosi is to become the President after she impeaches dear leader.
The resulting fire and righteous bile from the Right could be just the shock this country needs to pull back from the edge. That, of course, is the happy fun spin.
Impeachment means Pelosi is president. That’s her duty. As incumbent she is likely to be elected which makes 2008 far less important. An interesting and increasingly likely scenario.
[...] The President Pelosi Scenario originally speculated on how the impeachment of Bush and Cheney would then devolve the presidency to Nancy Pelosi. But now, with Sen. McCain scratching and squinting about his possible running mates, a new avenue of a Pelosi presidency is taking shape. McCain would be 72 by the time he reaches office. According to the US Dept. of Health and Human Services (table 5, page 17), a white male in the US has a 15.2% chance of dying between the ages of 72 and 76, which would cover McCain’s first term. Now, supposing the wet dreams of the rabid internet Ron Paul advocates comes true, and McCain chooses Paul as his running mate. He’d be 74 by the time he takes office, making his probability of dying in the first term 18.3%. The combined odds of both candidates kicking the bucket before the end of term would be about 2.8%. Small odds, but not impossible. Around 1 in 35. Nothing to seriously consider, but enough to give staunch conservatives something else to mull over as they try to sleep. Sweet dreams… [...]