Knowing the wingnuts as I do, I suspect that this is a rant against the law that prohibits shooting the homosexual activists who are forcing clergymen to find buff young men so attractive, or something of that nature. But I was wrong. It's actually an expose of the danger posed by the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, and how it will doom us all in the event of a Red Dawn.
The author's point is that if the President and the Vice President both die when Washington, D.C. is nuked, then having the Speaker of the House (followed by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate) take over as leader of the free world is a mistake, since this will lead to a situation where "someone in his or her 80's or 90's is likely to be the third in line to take up the presidency," so the Prez won't be much good at fighting the Commies mano a mano. And then, once the old guys expire following their attempts at besting Fidel in a knife fight, we will have to go to Congress to designate an "officer" of United States to take over the Commander in Chief role. And that will have Congress squabbling about whether members of the House and/or Senate are really officers, and then they will demand to see certified copies of birth certificates of anybody being considered for the job, which will waste a heck of a lot of time, what with so many public records being incinerated and such. And if we have to wait for Congress to sort things out, we're ALL DOOMED!
In other words, if a nuclear attack destroys the Capitol during the State of the Union and the "designated survivor" - say the Secretary of Energy -- is sworn in as the acting president, then afterwards a new Congress (or a handful of survivors of the old Congress) might assemble and elect a new Speaker who could then attempt to claim the Presidency. It is not difficult to imagine, especially if an attack had unleashed violent passions over, say, the use of nuclear weapons to retaliate or the scale of a foreign war, the former Secretary attempting to hold onto the presidency by asserting the unconstitutionality of congressional succession.
So, the author recommends "passing a new Presidential Succession Act that allows the President, pursuant to the advice and consent of the Congress, to designate a list of individuals who would then become the President in the event of a double vacancy." My feeling is that this would undoubtedly eat up a lot of Congress's time (how many laws are they going to get passed while they debate whether Bill Ayers and Satan belong on the list), and would cause a lot of hard feelings and awkward moments in Cabinet meetings when various advisers learn they rank behind Bo, the White House dog (or worse, aren't on the list at all). But maybe the law could just specify using the the President's Friends and Family Calling Plan list, in order of seniority, to speed things along.
Anyway, while this law isn't something I've given a lot of thought to (and I don't plan on doing so any time in the future), I have to applaud this wingnut for coming up with an original topic for his American Thinker debut (for this is indeed his first Think). So, kudos to you, Adam Yoshida!
Wait . . .I feel a stirring in the force, a presence I haven't sensed in some years. Could this be THE Adam Yoshida? You know, Canada's answer to Ann Coulter, if the question is, "What if Ann was an unemployed, doughy guy in his twenties who lived in his parents' basement and thought up crazy ideas to make America the Muslim-killing, McCarthyite paradise God intended it to be?"
Could it really be him? I checked his old fallout shelter, "The online home of Adam Yoshida, the most right-wing person in all of Canada," but it is still the way I remember it: untouched for years (insert joke here). But if you go to Google, you find a new, fresh, Adam Yoshida blog, one with just the American Thinker column for content. And then you'll notice (and this is the eerie part) the restful row of trees, the quiet lane, the peaceful sheep in the banner at the top of the page ... and you'll realize it's THE SAME BANNER USED BY ROBIN OF BERKELEY in her blog!!!
So, let's consider the facts: promising young wingnut Adam Yoshida arises from the decent liberal folk of Canada, flares into the sight of such blogs as this one, Sadly, No!, and other wise guys, and then, poof, he is gone. Then, in 2010, a new wingnut appears fully formed from the head of Zeus, claiming to be an ultra-conservative forced to live in hippie-dippie land, and she provides us with long hectoring columns about how America should run its business. And then she doesn't have a column in American Thinker last week. And this new Adam Yoshida does. And Adam's new blog has Robin's banner!!! Coincidence? You be the judge.
11 comments:
Oh dear god, there is just so much here. But my first thought is "Way to borrow trouble, dude [or Robin]!" I would have placed this terrifying scenario further down on the list of Horrible Things About Which We Must Be Vewy Vewy Afwaid.
"[I]f a nuclear attack destroys the Capitol during the State of the Union ... a handful of survivors ... could then hold onto the presidency ..."
A royal flush DOES beat a full House.
Wait, you're just suggesting that Robin is Adam's newest pen name, right? I have to ask, because I saw Leviathan again recently, and now I have this creepy image of a malevolent creature formed of what looks like melted waxy flesh with Adam's head on top sprouting clumps of stringy hair, and Robin's head growing out from the armpit of one twisted limb that ends in a glossy, jaundiced lobster claw where the halves don't exactly fit together. And every time one or the other of them opens its mouth, a noise comes out that sounds like an ancient, crackling wax cylinder recording of someone reading Liberal Fascism and stumbling over all the words that start with "H".
Unless that was what you were getting at.
Then, in 2010, a new wingnut appears fully formed from the head of Zeus
Well, there's your problem right there: it's not a mystery, it just took Robin until 2010 to escape liberalism. It's a Sisyphean effort, as a moment's reflection would tell any of us, but when you reach the summit you can see Chappaquiddick.
Meanwhile, don't those revered copies of the Constitution all wingnuts carry inside their Bibles contain a 25th Amendment? I know there are a couple of quibbles about how the '47 law jibes with the Twenty-fifth, but I don't recall "Congess could appoint a new Speaker and then he'd claim to be President" or "What if Dinocroc ate all the minor Cabinet secretaries at once?" being among them. Until now.
As Peggy Noonan says "It would be wrong not to speculate."
Wow. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this law has been on the books for, uh (math is hard) 60+ years, and the scenario has never arisen in that time? And yet, this is our MOST DANGEROUS LAW?
Somehow I think someone has too much time on his hands. And I can only hope that, were we in those dire straits, we'd elect to scrap the albatross that is the existing system and start up something fairer, more participatory, & more egalitarian.
I dream, I know.
Also, I'm sure you're aware of this and I am being the dopey jerk who ruins the joke, but that pretty tree photo is just the standard, default wordpress theme header, left in place by those who are too lazy or unimaginative to change it out for an actual original photo.
I don't mean to suggest that Adam & Robin WEREN'T separated at birth, however.
Obviously, "Adam" (if that is in fact "his" real name) has just finished watching he new version of "Battlestar Galcatica" and is no fan of President Laura Roslin.
Canada is the Liberal hippy part of North America... Berkeley is the Liberal, Hippie part of the USA... My God! It's turtles all the way down!!
Tempting, isn't it, to presume that "there can be only one" when talking about dopiest wingnuts. Unfurtunately, there's thousands, and more to take their place when they somehow manage to escalate a simple mugging into a beating, as Robin tells she endured, or walk into a threshing machine's business end, which I'm presuming will be Adam's demise for no other reason than he's probably got it coming.
But sadly, Adam and Robin display no real commonality other than a deeply abiding idiocy. Adam's a better writer, for one thing, and lacks Robin's incessant evangelism.
Incidentally, I'm assuming Dick Cheney shared Adam's concern, sort of, when he built a bunker under the Naval Observatory for himself. Or was he just expressing wishful thinking?
And by the way, sherri, BE MINE! Happy Valentine's Day.
this concern about the Presidential succession is just the undergrad Poli-Sci version of "if Aquaman and Blue Beetle had a fight, who would win?"
the "Patriot Act" just got an extension, and this dweeb is fretting over an imaginary succession crisis: i suppose nothing is too silly for the American Media to pick up and run with, but this boogeyman seems like a loser.
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