Sigh. Here I was with a full workday ahead of me and I was planning to stay away from this site all day. Then I read this piece in Slate with this sub-head:
Does the Bush administration have a secret succession order that bypasses Congress?
Oh sure, I thought, they're just trying to grab my attention. It's probably something minor, but I'm curious anyway. I'll give it a look.
So I gave it a look and it SCARED THE HELL OUT OF ME. Go read the piece, then follow me below the fold ...
I've heard strong buzz about Jane Mayer's new book The Dark Side but hadn't really paid a lot of attention thus far. What I have heard is more of the same that's been talked to death on this site and around the rest of the blogosphere, but THIS story of the spectre of a shadow government stretching back into the Reagan administration is new to me.
As you probably know, the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 provides that should the President no longer be President, his/her job is taken by the VP, then the Speaker of the House, then Senate President Pro Tempore followed by Cabinet officers.
According to the Slate piece, which takes Mayer's work as a jumping-off point, back in the 80's Reagan quietly issued a directive changing the lines of presidential succession. No HUGE problem there, it never hurts to look at this kind of thing every few decades. The scary part is that the succession plan was classified - it's a secret. We don't know who's going to be president if Dubya and Cheney go down in a helicopter crash, or shoot each other in the face or come down with a bad case of the anthrax.
Now, the real newshounds among us may be saying to yourselves, "no problem - Dubya issued a directive last year in which he 'explicitly pledged to act "consistent[ly]" with the Presidential Succession Act.' " Here's the problem with that - the following text appears waaaay down at the bottom of that directive:
(23) Annex A and the classified Continuity Annexes, attached hereto, are hereby incorporated into and made a part of this directive.
(24) Security. This directive and the information contained herein shall be protected from unauthorized disclosure, provided that, except for Annex A, the Annexes attached to this directive are classified and shall be accorded appropriate handling, consistent with applicable Executive Orders.
As also pointed out in Slate by Ron Rosenbaum last year, not even members of the House Committee on Homeland Security have access to those classified documents.
Now, we may be just fine. The reality may be that this is all sound and fury and the Presidential Succession Act is just fine. Or it may be that in the event we need number three to become number one in short order, the executive branch may decide there's a different president than the one the legislative branch (and the people) offer up. Guess which one the military is likely to support?
That, my friends, is pretty much the definition of a constitutional crisis. The kind that gets solved with guns.
So please, if I'm yelling at clouds, tell me so and tell me why I shouldn't be worried. If this scares you as much as it scares me however, join me in calling your congress member TODAY to demand hearings and action on this. This is a situation - as I see it right now - that CANNOT stand.
Thanks for reading - I look forward to your comments.