Bush should resign???

The New York Times' Gail Collins wrote a column this past weekend arguing that President Bush should resign immediately in order to allow Barack Obama to deal with the financial crisis immediately rather than wait until January 20. Specifically, her proposal calls for both Bush and Vice President Cheney to resign, which would make House Speaker Nancy Pelosi president until January 20. Collins assumes that Pelosi would serve basically as a puppet for Barack Obama between now and Inauguration Day.

I considered blogging about this idea several weeks ago when a similar proposal was advanced before the election by a pair of op-ed writers in the Boston Globe. If memory serves, I didn't think it deserved the attention at that time. It's still a bad idea, but the attention Collins' piece has drawn to it makes it worth discussing.

Collins' column evinces not the slightest appreciation for the radical nature of her proposal. It is radical in three ways. First, it would set a precedent for making presidential terms of office contingent on outside events. Presidents would be urged to resign whenever it appeared (or was argued) they could no longer be effective during their remaining days in office. This would introduce an element of unpredictability to our system of government that we have wisely avoided up to this point.

Second, Collins' proposal would introduce a new feature into our constitutional scheme: the "caretaker president." According to Collins, Nancy Pelosi would assume the White House for the sole purpose of governing in accordance with the wishes of Barack Obama. This innovation would be truly obnoxious to the concept of an independent executive as enshrined in Article II of the Constitution.

Third, if adopted, Collins' proposal would invite future leaders to use the Constitution's rules regarding presidential succession -- which were intended only to provide continuity of government in cases of unexpected vacancies -- to install virtually anyone they wanted as president. Let's say the powers that be in Washington wished to make Ryan Seacrest president without bothering to have an election. All it would take is for the current vice president to resign and for the president to appoint Seacrest to fill that vacancy. Pursuant to the 25th Amendment, Congress would have to confirm the appointment by a simple majority vote of both houses. Once confirmed, the president would resign, making Ryan Seacrest president. The only thing truly far-fetched in this scenario is using Ryan Seacrest as the hypothetical subject. One could substitute Barack Obama's name for Seacrest's and suddenly it's no more crazy that what Gail Collins is proposing. Arguably, it's a more conservative scheme than that which Collins is advocating, since it completely avoids the "caretaker president" problem. Either way it would be a decision by a relative handful of people in Washington to install a new president without bothering with an election or waiting for the current presidential term to expire.

One would think that a proponent of such a radical proposal would attempt to make a fairly compelling case for its necessity. In the case of Gail Collins, such an expectation would be sorely misplaced. Her main "argument" (if it can be called that) is that Bush should resign in order to avoid being regarded as the worst president in U.S. history (behind James Buchanan), rather than merely one of the worst. In other words, she thinks Bush should resign because resigning would be a good thing for him to do. If it sounds circular, it's because it is.

Collins' other rationale for a Bush resignation -- or perhaps it's the same rationale stated in different words -- is her assertion that the economic crisis requires it. How it requires it is not really clear. Collins seems to believe there are things that Barack Obama could do to help rescue the economy between now and January 20 that can't be done unless Nancy Pelosi is president. Of course, Speaker Pelosi can't become president uner Collins' scenario unless President Bush resigns, which almost certainly won't happen unless he agrees that the policies Obama would seek to implement would in fact be good for the country. In that case, however, he could just begin to implement those policies himself rather than turn over his $400,000-per-year job to Nancy Pelosi for two months. All of this might seem less silly if there were any specifics under discussion as to the "immediate" steps the Obama/Pelosi cabal had in mind for saving the economy. Collins fails to explain what those specific steps are, leading me to wonder if her proposal has any serious purpose other than to provide her with something to write about.

In Collins' defense, there is actually some historical precedent for the idea of a sitting president resigning in order to allow the incoming president to take office prior to Inauguration Day. FDR evidently considered trying to somehow ease Hoover out of office following the 1932 election. Perhaps more significantly, Woodrow Wilson secretly intended to resign in order to allow his opponent, Charles Evans Hughes, to assume the White House if Wilson had lost the 1916 election. I believe Wilson's plan was to appoint Hughes secretary of state, which at that time would have made him third in line for the presidency. Of course, the fact that Wilson considered such a move in 1916 doesn't mean it was a good idea then, let alone that it would be a good idea now. At least in 1916, however, the idea had the backing of the sitting president, and therefore had a chance to be put into practice. In the present instance, all the proposal has going for it is Gail Collins' snarky assertion that Bush needs to resign in order to lock up the number two spot on the list of all-time worst presidents. Presumably, Bush would need to hear a much stronger case for his resignation than Collins has been able to marshal.