I was going to write a diary on presidential succession that took the form of a snarky dKosian office pool. You know, given the presidential line of succession and the number of Republicans on that list who could be disappeared due to their own law-breaking (Plame investigation, DeLay indictment, etc.) name the POTUS and VPOTUS in November of 2008.
When I began looking at the assorted internets for background, I came upon this disturbing AP story from 2003.
More (and a version of the office pool in the form of a poll) below:
Given
S920 recently passed by the Senate and
HR 1943 pending in the House, which would put the Homeland Security Secretary ahead of Interior but after AG and the implication of the AP story:
House and Senate leaders are not officers within the meaning of the succession clause ...
one argueable line of presidential succession goes like this:
- President George W. Bush
- Vice President Richard B. Cheney
- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
- Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snow
- Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
- Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff
- Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton
- Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns
- Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez ineligible because foreign born
- Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao ineligible because foreign born
- Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt
- Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson
- Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta
- Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman
- Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings
- Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson
If Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and Gonzales were all to be implicated in the Fitzgerald investigation and had to resign, not likely but plausible, we could end up with President Snow and VP Chertoff.
Thoughts?
And please respond to the poll.
[Update] Sorry. I just realized the AP link is sub only. If you go to this link, and scroll down to the the External Link section near the end of the page, I think you'll get to the story directly.