Gail Collins calls on Bush to resign

While a resignation would be feel-good (0.00 / 0)

it would create chaos in the transition. Any more uncertainty than we have now would not be a good thing. Every bit of uncertainty cause thousands of people untold pain in layoffs, bankruptcies and foreclosures.

Krugman had a great piece on the Lame-Duck Economy in yesterday's NY Times, comparing the next two months to the interregnum between Hoover and FDR's administrations. It's sobering to thing about how much has changed in the last two months, and then try and project forward to inauguration: "nothing is happening on the [economic] policy front that is remotely commensurate with the scale of the economic crisis. And it's scary to think how much more can go wrong before Inauguration Day."

So it seems that Obama's announcement of his economic team--to come on Monday, by all reports--not even three weeks after the election, could go a long ways towards instilling enough confidence in the economy that the country can limp to inauguration day missing on a few cylinders. All that presumptive ("measuring the drapes") early planning is paying off tremendously for the people of this country.

For a campaign that was so maligned about the themes of hope and change, and of being intellectually "elite," it is exactly those qualities that will be all we have to rely on during this interregnum. The country will have little but "confidence" and "hope" to fall back on until the transition is complete and "change" manifests itself in competent government ready, willing and able to meet the challenges we currently face.

"Everyone's talking about a new New Deal, for obvious reasons. In 2008, as in 1932, a long era of Republican political dominance came to an end in the face of an economic and financial crisis that, in voters' minds, both discredited the G.O.P.'s free-market ideology and undermined its claims of competence. And for those on the progressive side of the political spectrum, these are hopeful times.

There is, however, another and more disturbing parallel between 2008 and 1932 - namely, the emergence of a power vacuum at the height of the crisis. The interregnum of 1932-1933, the long stretch between the election and the actual transfer of power, was disastrous for the U.S. economy, at least in part because the outgoing administration had no credibility, the incoming administration had no authority and the ideological chasm between the two sides was too great to allow concerted action. And the same thing is happening now."

The parallels are fascinating.

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by: JC @ Sat Nov 22, 2008 at 13:27:56 PM CST

Constitutional Point Of Order (0.00 / 0)

if Obama ascended to the presidency through succession as SoS, wouldn't the next month count as a "term," and prohibit him from running again in 2012?

Actually, no.  From the 22nd Amendment, Section 1:

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

So the Beutler plan could have been enacted nearly two years ago.  About Jan 22, 2007 if my math is right.

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by: JP @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 18:59:23 PM CST