—
[ You know who else was talking 25th Amendment? ]
In a word: Everybody.
Rod Rosenstein was not alone in his shock and dismay (even if satire rued those days).
Not if you read between the lines of, what everybody knows — but far too few are willing to say.
(That the “current Commander-in-Chief is probably not able do the Job competently.”)
—
Be they emboldened by the ‘truth-serum’ of Anonymity ...
[...]
Recognizing the bind that top officials serving an unfit president could face, the nation in 1967 amended the Constitution to provide for the removal of a president who “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” The Twenty-Fifth Amendment creates a lawful path for a top government official who believes the president cannot serve: Work to remove him, rather than disobey legal orders.
According to the anonymous senior official in the Times, the idea has been discussed:
Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.
This is astonishingly shortsighted. [...]
www.theatlantic.com — Sept 5, 2018
Or be they disgruntled White House staffers, who can no longer keep their worrisome secrets in …
Ratified in 1967, the 25th Amendment to the Constitution allows the vice president and a majority of sitting Cabinet secretaries to remove the president if they decide he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” Crafted in the wake of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, it’s been cited recently in response to President Donald Trump and mounting evidence that he’s not equipped to handle the office of the presidency. Excerpts from a new book on the Trump administration don’t just bolster that view; they suggest a White House where officials have all but invoked an informal version of that provision, stymieing presidential decision making and cutting Trump out of the policymaking and other affairs of state. The White House may be divided by competing loyalties and self-interest, but it is united in its belief that the president cannot be allowed to act unencumbered, lest he plunge the federal government—and the United States—into chaos.
In Fear: Trump in the White House, veteran reporter Bob Woodward portrays an administration where Trump’s own high-ranking advisers hold him in contempt and disdain, scorning him as ignorant and dangerously irresponsible. In the first months of his presidency, Trump is said to have asked the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for plans for a pre-emptive strike on North Korea, told Defense Secretary James Mattis that he wanted Bashar al-Assad assassinated, and brought the White House to a standstill with his anger over the appointment of Robert Mueller as special prosecutor.
[...]
Woodward isn’t the first observer to allege a “breakdown” in the White House; in Michael Wolff’s now-infamous Fire and Fury, Trump is described as “semi-literate” and unable to “process information in any conventional sense.” Writing about her time in the administration, former adviser Omarosa Manigault Newman ties the dysfunction of the administration to a president who is in the grip of mental decline. “Something real and serious was going on in Donald’s brain,” she wrote. “Donald rambled. He spoke gibberish. He contradicted himself from one sentence to the next.”
slate.com — Sept 5, 2018
That’s comforting eh? Gibberish and dysfunction, rolled into one contradictory “pre-emptive strike”?
I know I’ll sleep better — Not!
Lest you think I’m speaking hyperbolicly, take it from this author, who had the first inside-track on the Trump Insiders … Mr Wolff walked around the White House for months — taking notes, listening to dirt being dished — all because no one bothered to ask “What is he doing here?” …
Michael Wolff discussed the “competence problem” on Meet the Press, January 7, 2018 www.realclearpolitics.com:
Author Michael Wolff appeared exclusively on 'Meet the Press' Sunday to talk about "alarming" observations about the Trump administration from his new book "Fire and Fury," including reports that White House staff regularly talk about taking the 25th Amendment option to attempt to remove Trump from power.
Anyone paying attention to the “Twitter Genius” conducting OUR state business, knows we are NOT dealing with a “normal” presidency here, folks.
And those not paying attention — they just like the Trump show. It’s a hoot!
The Truman show had fans too. But look how that ended up … when flights of fancy crashed headlong into an immovable sunset prop.
Will the sponsors dare to say anything, the next time Trump doesn’t show up to work?
Or worse yet, the next time he shows up — with his latest “Genius” idea — involving Bombs, Banks, or Borders?
…
Maybe if we just go on pretending there is no “incompetence problem” here — then maybe, it will just. quietly. go away.
Like Truman Burbank did when reality finally catches up with him.
...
Then again — we all could win Lotto tomorrow too. Afterall, Everybody’s always got a chance.
— — —
In case the worse happens, in the meantime, I bid you:
"Good afternoon, good evening, and good night,"
Fare-thee-well, amidst the Chaos of our times.