Over at Eschaton today, commenter Monica A asks the following:
Really quick question. If shrub and the iron lung are indicted by Fitzgerald, then it's Hastert as President. What happens if Hastert isn't a go (I remember some talk of investigating his campaign funds)? Does it go to Condi Rice by default?
Monica A | Email | 10.02.05 - 2:39 pm | #
See, this is why it's actually a GOOD thing that the TreasonGate/DeLay/etc. probes have taken so damn long. More after the jump...
Over at Eschaton today, commenter Monica A asks the following:
Really quick question. If shrub and the iron lung are indicted by Fitzgerald, then it's Hastert as President. What happens if Hastert isn't a go (I remember some talk of investigating his campaign funds)? Does it go to Condi Rice by default?
Monica A | Email | 10.02.05 - 2:39 pm | #
See, this is why it's actually a GOOD thing that the TreasonGate/DeLay/etc. probes have taken so damn long.
The indictments have already started. The trials will be starting just as the 2006 campaign season gets into high gear.
Remember, Nixon resigned in August of a midterm year, but that was back when the campaign seasons weren't the bloated, drawn-out affairs that they are now. (The Pubbies still got slaughtered, but it wasn't as bad as it would have been had Nixon stayed in office.)
By the time spring rolls around, the RNC and their corporate donors -- that is, the ones that aren't so intimately entwined with BushCo that it's impossible for them to distance themselves from it -- are going to be begging Bush to resign "to spend more time with his family". Expect a health problem for Laura and/or the twins to be used as the official excuse.
If they're lucky, Bush bails.
If they're NOT lucky, Bush thinks he can pull a Clinton and tough it out until he's actually hauled off by his own Secret Service agents.
See, Bush is definitely dumb and arrogant enough to think he could pull a Clinton. But he forgets that Clinton's approval ratings during impeachment were consistently twice what Bush's are right now -- and that the economy under Clinton was in the biggest boom the US has ever seen. As I've noted above, the real parallel is to Nixon in 1974.
In short, we actually WANT Bush to try and pull a Clinton. This will guaran-damn-tee that by the time Bush and Cheney are finally forced to step down in January of 2007, Nancy Pelosi will be House Speaker -- and thus, President Pelosi.
I can handle that.
(EDIT: Oh, and if anyone says that Bush and Cheney aren't in legal jeopardy because they can't be made to deal with legal issues while in office, I have two words for you: Paula Jones.)
(EDIT #2: There's some question as to whether a sitting president can be indicted, as opposed to being sued. Back in the 1970s, the Solicitor General argued that the vice president (in this case, Spiro "nolo contendre" Agnew) could be indicted. If they can't be indicted, then being named as "unindicted co-conspirators" is the next step. In other words, trying to shame Bush and Cheney into resigning. However, I can't see this happening before the 2006 midterms, because both Bush and Cheney are simply too pigheaded -- and after the 2006 midterms, Dennis Hastert will no longer be Speaker.)