Having an inarticulate buffoon as Speaker of the House of Representatives would be bad enough, but referring to that office as "third in the line of succession to the president" diminishes the gravity, and peril, of the situation.
Everyone's talking about the imminent succession of Kevin McCarthy of California to the post currently held by John Boehner of Ohio. Yes, he's an idiot, and just as apparently such as are former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin and Minnesota miscreant Michelle Bachmann. Not only does this prospect of McCarthy as Speaker horrify any reasonable person in and of itself, but the specter of this bumbling, confused jackass as President of the United States is enough to freak anyone out. To raise general alarm about this apocalyptic possibility, people are again exclaiming, "The Speaker of the House is third in the line of succession to the president!"
The Speaker of the House of Representatives is second in the the line of succession to the president. That's #2, not #3. Got that?
I've emailed each of my favorite talk show hosts (Rachel Maddow, Thom Hartmann and Norman Goldman) on this twice each. They all keep saying it wrong. I just sent them another email today. Why can't they get this right? Is it because you hear other people say it wrong? They can't hear all the people yelling at the TV, radio, smart phone or computer when we hear otherwise smart people say the speaker is "third in line."
No. The Speaker is second in the line of succession. When you're enumerating the people queued up to take over the president's job when he or she can no longer execute the office, you don't start counting at "1" with the president. The president is not "in line" for his or her own job; the president has the title "President" already.
Let's start counting with the first person in line to succeed the president.
1. Vice President (first in the line of succession)
2. Speaker of the House of Representatives (second)
3. President Pro Tempore of the Senate (third)
If you want to give the president an ordinal index in the line of succession for his own job, it has to be zero. But, only computer programmers like me begin an ordinal index with zero, so I guess one has to explain this in another way for the general populace.
In case this seems odd to you, and it may sound "off" because you're so used to hearing about the Speaker being third in the line of succession, let's make an analogy to the captain of a ship. The captain's title is "Captain". There are titles for those in line to succeed the captain if the captain should be incapacitated. They are, in order...
1. First Mate
2. Second Mate
3. Third Mate
Note that the captain is not in this list. These are the people in the line of succession to be designated Captain, which does not include the current captain. If you've ever watched Star Trek: The Next Generation, you know that Captain Picard always addresses his first mate, Commander Riker, as "Number One," not "Number Two."
The captain is not talking to himself. He isn't his own "Number One," is he? The first mate, #1 in the line of succession, is someone else. The person next in the line of succession is the second mate. By analogy, the Speaker of the House is second in the line of succession to the president, not third. The vice president is first in line and the person after that is second.
Got that? Please, please, please let me hear everyone start saying this right in the future. It drives me nuts and I'm sure it irks everyone else who has bothered to look up the line of succession to the president. Thank you.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy
Look. It's not as bad as you fear. John Boehner's not very smart, and he did an adequate, if somewhat incompetent, job as speaker. There have been two very stupid presidents, Gerald Ford and George W. Bush, in my lifetime. The rest, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, George H. W. Bush, Clinton and Obama did a better job than the two idiots, but the nation survived, even with a fool in charge. The House of Representatives will endure, too.