if we're serious about impeachment, we should have a replacement in mind.

[underscorenow]

Or are we actually content to let him get in 3 more years of destruction and inculable waste of our money?

[Ian David]

1. Nancy Pelosi is in the line of succession to be Unitary Executive...

Impeach Bush!
Nancy Pelosi for Unitary Executive 2006!

[asthmaticeog]

10. The line of succession:

The Vice President
Speaker of the House
President pro tempore of the Senate
Secretary of State
Secretary of the Treasury
Secretary of Defense
Attorney General
Secretary of the Interior
Secretary of Agriculture
Secretary of Commerce

That's the first ten. Which one of those is Pelosi?

[Ian David]

13. She'll be third after we take back the House in 2006

<snip>

Members of her caucus understand how Pelosi provides a link to the Democratic Party of O'Neill and her father, and how well she embodies the traits of the most adept party leaders of old: a sense of inclusion, a knack for discipline, a feel for both principle and compromise. When the public looks at Pelosi, though, it sees a breakthrough figure in American politics, the woman who shattered the highest glass ceiling yet, and who will go higher still should she become speaker of the House, third in the line of presidential succession, after November. "Many Democrats are getting super excited about {the prospect of} the first woman speaker," says the DCCC's Bernards. "Since Nancy started signing our mail, we've had over a million dollars a month for over 10 months in a row now."
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=7699


Here's just one aspect of why this is so important: Everybody knows that Preznit Don't Talk to Me About the Constitution and his evil minions will never be called on the carpet for their numerous high crimes and misdemeanors as long as the Republicans control Congress. So it behooves the nation and the very survival of America to put in place politicians who will stand up to the Lawbreaker in Chief and demand that he be held accountable for his criminal behavior. The problem with impeaching now, though, is the line of succession -- even if we were to rid ourselves of Dimwit Dubya and Hellspawn Dick, the next person after the two of them in line for the Oval Office is the now-tainted Hastert. Who wants that? With Democrats retaking the House, that line of succession would lead instead to San Francisco's own Nancy Pelosi.

Quite a difference! President Pelosi, anyone?
http://generik.blogspot.com/2006/01/vermin-overboard.html

[Radical Activist]

2. The benefit of impeachment is that we will win the next election...

by a landslide. Democrats won Congress by a huge margin and the Presidency after Nixon was impeached and people realized what a crook he was. All we need are hearings so people will know the truth, then they will act.

[asthmaticeog]

8. Did I miss something? When was Nixon impeached?

:shrug:

[Radical Activist]

9. Good point. All it took was the truth coming out.

That will never happen if Democrats don't get serious about demanding a real investigation and hearings. If the American people find out all the truth through public hearings then we will win the next election in a landslide.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

3. I don't think we can actually

impeach the whole administration. Gotta follow the line. But we sure would have a great chance in the next election cycle.

[HereSince1628]

4. What we need is to first remove Cheney from the succession

then take out Bush.

The difficulty of that is rather overwhelming. If Fitzgerald's investigation or the AIPAC investigation could force Cheney to resign, there would be a chance to pull it off. Somehow that seems much more wistful than possible.

[ktlyon]

12. yes like in Nixon time. We got Agnew first then the dick resigned

Ford was not Speaker. He was selected as VP. We need someone like Bob Dole to replace Cheney then impeach Bush.

[TheVirginian]

14. Agnew resigned for completely different reasons than Nixon. n/t

[ktlyon]

15. yes tax evasion

which could have been in the impeachment of Nixon if there had been one. The illegal slush fund for off the shelf operations was a violation of tax law, campaign law, and others probably. Nixon resigned so he was never convicted of anything.

[TheVirginian]

16. Agnew resigned for his actions when he was Governor of Maryland...

Nixon resigned for his actions when he was President of the U.S.

An investigation into Agnew's illegal actions as governor would have been outside the scope of any investigation into the Watergate scandal.

[ktlyon]

18. I'll agree and your point is?

Are you disagreeing with my point on how to proceed with removing this bunch or how Ford became Pres.

[karynnj]

19. Not DOLE

Dole was a Republican hatchet man from way back. After his loss to Clinton, the corporate media rehabilitated his image to witty distiquished elder stateman. This was after doing a pepsi commercial where he oogled a teenage Britney Spears. (The same media that projected the image of "crazy angry loser" for Al Gore (who was none of these things).

I would hope they would pick someone like Senator Lugar, who is a very conservative, but honorable person. (or a moderate like Olympia Snowe)

[calimary]

20. The only problem with that is - take out cheney and who is bush most

likely to install in his place?

You got it. His girlfriend, Contradicta. And she's "popular" enough with many of the folks they pander to (yeah, I know. Go figure), PLUS, it would give them strutting rights with African-American voters.

NO, NO, NO, NO, and DOUBLE NO. We do NOT want to remove cheney first.

Please don't misunderstand, either. I HATE mr. dickie go-fuck-yourself. He's the base evil of this whole machine. But you have to think several moves ahead with this bunch, and consider the unintended consequences (like they NEVER DO, NEVER HAVE, and NEVER WILL). It would be counter-productive to give the enemy an opening like that. If I were a republi-CON and that happened, I'd be screaming and yelling like crazy to get Contradicta in there. Strategically it would be their absolute best move - for THEM. For the rest of us it would be utterly disastrous. If anything, that woman is a bigger, blinder, more disgraceful fuck-up even than george. She's nothing but a cardboard cut-out with gapped teeth and helmet hair. Oh yes, and don't forget her 5th Avenue wardrobe of "let 'em eat cake" Ferragamos.

[ProudDad]

27. There's no reason why

they can't both be impeached at the same time.

But, I recognize that we would have to get 67 Senate Votes for impeachment -- an impossible task.

BUT AGAIN -- just tying those pricks up for the remaining 2 years of the bush crime family's term would be a victory.

[INdemo]

5. After the Democrats gain a majority

and gain subpoena power look out..but if they dont heaven help us.We may not have a Democracy or mankind may not even exist if * has three more years.

[cali]

6. Let's step out of fantasy land.

We have no chance of impeaching bush unless we win back the house. Odds against that are pretty strong. Even if we did win back the house, odds are Impeachment wouldn't succeed.

[mtnsnake]

22. Fantasy land?

Why is it fantasy land?

If we win back the House, we CAN impeach him. Whether or not he's convicted is another story, but he can be impeached if we win back the House.

If we DON'T win back the House, he can still be served with impeachment charges by any member of the House. Whether or not the charges go any further than a committee to look into it, god only knows.

Bottom line is we have to try, with or without a majority.

[Virginia Dare]

7. Unfortunately, we don't get the pick the replacement..

there is a very specific succession laid out int he Constitution.

[rzemanfl]

11. My plan has all along been this, some congressperson from a

state with a Democratic Governor resigns, Gore or Kerry moves to that state and is appointed to fill out their term, then is elected Speaker and becomes President, they appoint the other President we elected as their V-P. I think it should be Kerry/Gore only because Gore is younger and will still be young enough to be elected when Kerry's terms are over.
This is, of course, after Dems get control of House and Senate and impeach Bush and Cheney for their crimes or Bush gets impeached and Cheney gets too close to a microwave oven.

[ISUGRADIA]

30. Open seats are filled by election, not by governors

and Republican Senators would never for for removal for pres and vp so leading to a Democratic Speaker taking office. It would be political suicide.

[HamdenRice]

17. Please once and for all: Succession has nothing to do with it

Can we not get hung up on the line of succession? Just as in the Nixon administration, the VP is too corrupt to become president. I think we all agree that Bush cannot be impeached solely to be replaced by Cheney. Whatever Bush is guilty of, Cheney also is guilty of.

That means that the strategy would have to be to impeach or force the resignation of Cheney first.

At that point, the president has the authority to nominate a successor VP with the approval of a majority in Congress.

Twenty fifth Am:

Section 2.
Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.


That means that as with Nixon, a hostile Congress basically has veto power over who becomes VP. Congress can hold out for whoever they want. The succession -- ie Speaker -- has nothing to do with it. Then when the President is forced to resign or is impeached and removed, the VP steps into the presidency.

For that matter, Congress could force Bush to appoint Al Gore as vP, or for that matter Weird Al Yankovitch.

With Nixon, Congress basically demanded Ford, a very popular, bi-partisan and honest Congressman. Because impeachment won't happen unless the House has been won by Democrats anyway, Democrats can demand Bush appoint someone who they will approve.

That said, my guess is that the replacement of Cheney will be a Republican who is not in the cloud cookoo land wing -- McCain or Powell.

[Independent_Liberal]

23. Glad you brought this up.

A lot of people have said that if both Bush and Cheney were impeached, Hastert would become President. They don't always have to use that line of succession. That line has mostly been used in the event of an assassination. The President can appoint anybody he wants as VP or Congress can make recommendations. You mentioned the Ford scenario. The House was under Democratic control at the time and the Speaker of the House was Democratic Congressman Carl Albert. They didn't have to use the line of succession. Ford was House Minority Leader and Congress suggested appointing him VP after Agnew resigned. In the end, Nixon was basically forced to accept him. Then Nixon resigned and Ford became President and he appointed Republican Nelson Rockefeller (who was previously Governor of New York) as his VP. I'm predicting that something similar will happen. My scenario: Cheney will be forced out either before or after he's charged in the CIA leak or AIPAC investigations. Bush will be forced to appoint McCain as VP. Dems win back Congress (Nancy Pelosi will be Speaker of the House). Hearings, investigations, and impeachment proceedings begin and some Republicans force Bush to resign and then McCain becomes President and he'll appoint a Democrat as his VP for a bipartisan administration (I think he'd appoint Lieberman). I'd like to hear your thoughts on my scenario.

[HamdenRice]

29. I think that's a plausible scenario

If the Republicans have some control over the process the VP is likely to be McCain. Another possibility, I think, is Colin Powell. I know that he is discredited, but because of the incredibly perilous international situation and the desperation of the military to extract it self from Iraq, the "establishment" might force Colin "Powell doctrine" Powell on the administration as VP.

My more tin foil hattish scenario, however, is that as the administration unwinds, much more unsavory information will be leaked, including the administration's role in 9/11 LIHOP and the extent of election fraud in 2004. If that happens, and if dozens of republicans in the House are indicted in the Abramoff scandal, I could see the country seeking a change of party control before the 2008 elections, in which case Al Gore would be the logical choice (since he clearly won in 2000), with McCain or Powell as VP.

I agree that there is going to be some kind of European style "government of national unity" if things get really ugly.

[katinmn]

21. Once you do the ultimate hard thing, it gets easier

If impeached, those fuckers would know they better walk on the straight and narrow.

If an impeachment ever does takes place it will be because the people truly engaged and forced it.

If we get a citizen-forced impeachment, all elected officials are on notice that the people are holding them accountable and that elected "officials" are mere public servants.

Big ifs.

[Kablooie]

24. Could we put Gerald Ford back in?

[Independent_Liberal]

25. Can somebody who's already been President be appointed VP?

What does it say about that in the Constitution? I can't remember. Ford looks like he's getting ready to collapse. I don't know if we'd be able to put him back in.

:)

[Kablooie]

28. Hell, Cheney's had a bum heart the whole time so why not?

[ProudDad]

26. Nancy Pelosi

would probably be the next Speaker of the House -- next in line after bush and cheney are removed from office for High Crimes and Misdemeanors...