Originally posted by FlyersFan
Originally posted by OrganizedChaos
Nope, it goes to Joe Biden.
Sept 11, 2008 (US World and News Report)
"Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified that I am to be vice president of the United States of America - let’s get that straight.”
Wonder if he'd resign and let her have a straight shot?
He's a kind of down to earth guy. He just might.
From
www.aei.org...
"The Constitution, of course, created a Vice President to step in if the presidency were vacant. But it left the question of succession beyond the
Vice President up to Congress, specifying only that successors be "officers" of the United States. Three times since the Republic began--in 1792,
1886, and 1947--Congress devised succession plans.
The current system, in place for the past 57 years, puts
- the speaker of the House of Representatives
and
- the president pro tempore of the Senate
in line after the Vice President,
followed by the cabinet in order of the creation of the office.
(The sequence goes
State, Treasury, Defense, Attorney General, and onward -
(my note: the last in line being Homeland Security.)
(my note: punctuation of the list of succession is mine, for added clarity)
...Succession law changes in response to events. Today's rules were established in 1947 at the instigation of Harry Truman. When he took office upon
F.D.R.'s death in 1945, the line of succession consisted of the cabinet secretaries. Truman felt vulnerable; the world was still at war, yet he had
no Vice President and no way to fill that slot for nearly four years. Next in line was Secretary of State Edward Stettinius (whom Truman didn't warm
to and would soon replace). Truman believed that having unelected cabinet members leading the succession was undemocratic. Within two months after
assuming the presidency, he announced a push for reform. He went back to a 1792 principle of putting senior members of Congress in the succession.
Because powerful Sam Rayburn was House speaker, he placed him first in line, followed by the president pro tem of the Senate and then by the
cabinet."
So under the rules prior to 1947, Hillary Clinton
would be vice-president if Joe Biden were to succeed to the Presidency.
The present setup, which puts the power-mad, wannabe tyrant Nancy Pelosi right after Joe Biden in line of succession is an accident of history.
Sam Rayburn, a House member so powerful that a very large lake was made and named after him last century, was Speaker of the House, whose help Truman
needed in marshalling voting majorities from a Congress divided into Democrats (and by 1948. Dixiecrats) and Republicans, with no strong majority.
I think that Harry Truman was unduly optimistic that anyone who got to be Speaker of the House would be above tricks like turning out the lights to
end debate early on offshore drilling (Truman, of course, would have no idea that millions of Americans would one day be watching House and Senate
sessions on satellite TV until Pelosi pulled that stunt, and a few ingenious Americans would be able to watch the proceedings from that point because
one rebellious Representative was broadcasting them from his camera cell phone on Twitter).
The American Enterprise Institute article I quoted from above goes on to say that Congress needs to revisit the line of succession - however, I can't
think of a single Congress I'd have trusted with the job since Truman made the last set of changes go through (with the future vice-president by line
of succession shepherding the bill through the House). No President's been strong enough since Reagan to revisit the line of succession and change
it successfully in a way that makes sense.
I mean, Cabinet officers in order of creation of the office? What's that got to do with anything? I can't see that list meaning anything after,
say, a nuclear attack on DC.
Big surprise... 
) would be able to tell the difference. You can bet that the Supreme Court isn't going to be able to "verify" his birth certificate, even if
they held it in their hands. (It's AMAZING how many people are so gullible and hopeful to believe that an "expert forensic specialist" would even
DARE to claim a document as "fake" BY LOOKING AT A .jpeg! Seriously, no "expert" worth a DIME would make a judgment on a document without
ever having held it in their hands... Think about that, Polarik believers...) 
