There was a ten minute interval between the time that Dick Cheney was inaugurated, and the time George Walker Bush took the oath. For a brief period, the United States had a Democratic president and a Republican Vice President.
Discuss.
Oh, the inauguration is over? Oh well.
Me, I think Clinton & Cheney would make a great team. I also thought that the Elder Bush and Lloyd Bentsen would have been good together. But I’m weird like that, I guess.
I kinda like the scenario from Chris Buckley’s White House Mess. President Reagan simply refused to leave. Clinton should’ve barricaded himself in the White House and refused to leave.
Now excuse me while I vomit.
Robin
I also thought that was strange. I expected Bush, and the leader, to be sworn in first.
That would have put the two election losers, popular vote and electorial vote, as President and Vice President.
In that 10 minutes, if Clinton fired Cheney, would Bush have to appoint a new VP, subject to Senate approval?
Sorry to rain on your parade, but the president can’t fire the veep. He’s an elected official.
I, too, am surprised that Bush didn’t get sworn in first. Dunno why, but I figured that they would have started with the more important office.
They swear in the VP-elect first, in case Something Bad happens to the President-elect while he’s up there. That way, the VP is actually the VP, and not just the VP-elect, and he can actually assume the duties of the President.
Pretty clever, huh?
And notice how they send one member of government out of the state to an undisclosed location, in case terrorists attack and wipe out the entire government.
Actually, since George W. Bush wasn’t sworn in until 12:01 p.m., wasn’t Dick Cheney president for one minute?
Nope, because Clinton was still President until GWB was finished swearing in. We assume that the transfer of power occurs instantaneously.
United States Constitution, Amendment XX, Section 1:
Thus, if former President Clinton’s term ended at 12:00 noon today and President George W. Bush was not sworn in until 12:01 p.m., it does appear that Dick Cheney was President, if only for one minute.
Actually, Chaney would still be VP. The office of President would be empty for that minute.
Gore used to attempt humor by talking of having had an approximately 5-minute “Gore Administration” during which exactly 1 job was created and no casualties were incurred (or something like that).
I’m going to have to check whether in the ** legislation or rules that enforce ** the 22nd. Amendment, there is interpretation allowing for reasonable wiggle room if there’s trouble rounding up the qualified successor.
At best, the succession rule would provide for the New Veep to have the acting presidency during that gap, but how likely is it for there to be a need for Presidential action?
In any case, the order of the swearing-in, as previously mentioned, is intended to leave no doubt as to the duly constituted chain of succession during the transitional phase.
jrd
Actually, wasn’t there a 19th centurty case where someone refused to be sworn in on a Sunday and the argument was this other guy (maybe a majority leader or something) was technically argued to be President for a day?
There's an online comic doing that with Clinton. Think it was Superosity.What would happen if there was a President, and he ran in an election as VP? Then if they won, when he was sworn in he would be VP and P briefly.
Even more crazy, if he was killed during that brief time, then the Speaker would take over, right?
I AM SO GLAD I’M CANADIAN
I dont have to worry about any of these people! Not at all! (that is, untill Bush gets us into a war)
CA-NA-DA! CA-NA-DA! CA-NA-DA!
For more information about David Rice Atchison, check out http://home.nycap.rr.com/useless/atchison/atchison.html
Hey, wait! If Cheney was sworn in at 11:50, and Gore’s term didn’t end until Noon, then which one had ACUTAL Vice Presidential powers during that 10 minutes? Obviously, the answer doesn’t really matter, but just out of curiosity, who was the REAL veep for this time?
Why do you assume Bush will get into a war? What wars this century have been started under Republicans? Gulf War. Probably lost more under Clinton's "They'll be home by Christmas" peacekeeping missions. Under Democrats we had WWI, WWII, Korea, and the Kennedy-Johnson fiasco in Vietnam.
Granted, WWI and WWII US involvement was inevitable, but not the others. Ronald Reagan, “the hawk” didn’t send anywhere NEAR the troops to their death that that “compassionate” Democrat JFK did.
MPSIMS: Didn’t James Doohan lose that finger at D-Day when he was in the Canadian army?