Alternate History: Bush and Cheney are Impeached – Now what?

Note: This article was written before the November 2008 election.

Even in this 11th hour of the Bush/Cheney administration there are still efforts to have them both impeached. Unbelievable! Get over it!

This is not about the merits (which are oh soooooooo weak!) of impeaching President Bush and Vice President Cheney. That's been beaten well in other blogs. This article is about what it would have meant if in fact Bush and Cheney were impeached and removed from office.

Always keep in mind that "impeachment" is not the same as removal from office! Bill Clinton was impeached. That is a fact of history no matter how some want to spin it. Being "impeached" is the same for a President as is a conviction for you and me. But just like a conviction doesn't always result in jail time so an impeachment doesn't have to result in removal from office. And keep in mind that there has never in American history been the impeachment and removal of a President and Vice President.

But let's presume it did happen. President George Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney were impeached and the sentence was removal from office.

Now what?

According to the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, codified in Title 3, Chapter 1, Section 19 of the United States Code, the Speaker of the House (Congress) and the President pro Tempore of the Senate are the next two in line of authority (followed by the Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Defense rounding out the first 5 in order). So the head of the Congress becomes President and the head of the Senate becomes the VP. That means Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have been President!

Stop and think about that. President Nancy Pelosi. Just think what that means.
She would have been the first woman President. While I'm sure many feminists would have been cheering in the streets, is that really the way they wanted it to go down? She would have been an unelected President.

No one voted for her. No one declared their undivided support for her and her administration.No one said "Yep, she's the one I want to lead the country and the free world!"And definitely no mandate from the people!

Is this really the way feminists want history to record how the first woman President took office? Not my election of popularity but by legal maneuvering?! (I sometimes wonder if she herself understood what would happen if people like her got her way with the impeachment.)

I wonder if she would have run for election when her temporary term was up? Would she have run against Hilary Clinton in the next election? That at least would have been interesting.

Think about what this would mean for the Democrat party. First, the only way they can get one of their members into the Oval Office is by arresting and deposing a sitting President?! How honorable is that? And they too certainly couldn't say they had a mandate from the people. Now add in the Nancy Pelosi is also a Democrat and do they really want history recording the first woman to be President wasn't by election but by legal tactics and was also backed by the Democrat party?

In the end I suppose it doesn't really matter. To those who believe Bush and Cheney deserve to be impeached and removed the end justifies the means. But history is forever. And history will be much more critical of those than they believe it will be.

Fortunately it won't happen. But we can still wonder what if?

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