Whatever Norm Ornstein is smoking, I want some! (w/POLL)

AEI überwonk Norm Ornstein is worried that the scandals surrounding the Bush administration will cause a "meltdown," leaving our common boat "rudderless" (as if we were so deftly led now!). His roadmap for a solution?

1. Vice President Cheney resigns-- and President Bush replaces him not with Condoleeza Rice, as the rumors in Washington speculate, but with his father, George H.W. Bush.
   
2. President Bush resigns, allowing his father to move up to the presidency.
   
3. Bush 41/44 chooses his best buddy and surrogate son Bill Clinton (42, that is) to be Vice President. Talk about a fusion White House. Talk about bringing us together. Talk about compassionate triangulation.
   

Do we really have to go over all the reasons why this will never happen? Fine...

First: Even if Cheney were forced to resign, Bush would never appoint his father as vice president. As part of an ongoing family psychodrama, the man who once challenged his father to go "mano a mano" with him after a DUI incident has consciously modeled his presidency as a rejection of his father's tenure. Whereas Bush '41 governed as a moderate, '43 has hugged his base so close it borders on harrassment. Whereas '41 had an internationalist foreign policy, '43 turned his over to the nuttiest elements of his party. And so on. Bush, a chronic underachiever, has lived most of his life in the shadow of his overachieving father. He probably saw his reelection as the definitive triumph over his father, his one chance to get up from under his shadow at long last. Bringing in Bush Sr. would be an admission of failure of dizzying proportions. It'd be like saying to the whole world, "I failed, and I need my father to come clean up my mess." It'd be that 1972 DUI all over again.

Second: Unless under threat of removal by impeachment, presidents don't resign. Nixon resigned, not because his presidency was failing and he wanted to give America a fresh start, but because the odds were good that he'd be convicted in the Senate. Clinton hung tough precisely because he knew he could hold the Democrats together and escape removal. Who knows what Fitzmas will bring, but odds are Bush won't be under serious threat of impeachment, and so he won't resign. Yes, it'd be good for the country if he did, but he could give a shit.

Third: In the unlikely case that 1 and 2 happen, and Bush 41/44 offers Bill Clinton the VP slot, I doubt Clinton wouldn take it. While Bill is always there when Dubya calls him to pair up with Dad, but this would be different. Taking the job would mean serving under the man he beat in '92. Once you've been #1, you can't possibly be #2 to the man you beat. Bill is a good American, and if there were enough pressure on him to take the job for "the good of the country" he might consider it, but his massive ego would be a huge hurdle to overcome. I don't meant this pejoratively; all presidents have huge egos--you need a huge ego to think you can run the most powerful country in the world. So I'd be very surprised if BC overcame his and took the VP slot.

In the event of a Cheney resignation, I suspect the party will pressure Bush to appoint someone who is untainted by scandal, not too closely associated with the administration, and who can be positioned as the heir apparent and enjoy the meager advantages incumbency will afford in '08. If I had serious ambitions about '08, I'd try to put as much distance between myself and the administration as possible. But I'm sure the lure of being one heartbeat away will rope someone in.

It's hard to say whether Ornstein is being serious or not; he closes with this line:

Keep this roadmap in your back pocket for now. And remember, you heard it here first.

Yup...putting it in my pocket right now...