No, that’s when exposed to sunlight. He could still rule perfectly well only coming out at night to eat babies and be videotaped.
What would Cheney accomplish as president that he’s not accomplishing already? He’s someone with little charisma, who garners zero sympathy and can’t “aw, shucks” his way out of a bind (though he’s not afraid to come out shooting). I’m not really seeing a downside to him having to stand at center stage in the spotlight.
You sure? I mean, once President Gale Nortam is inaugurated, there is no vacancy for the Speaker of the House to fill. Unless the law means to fill past vacancies rather than present ones. Right?
Look, if Bush is impeached then Cheney will have to be impeached simultaneously as a co-conspirator. Any taint on GWB includes this generation’s Tricky Dick too.
A Cheney administration would be just like Bush’s, except there would be more secrecy. Otherwise, it would be rather like watching Edgar Bergen talk without Charlie McCarthy.
I still remeber Jesse Jackson’s crack when Bush Senior was in the hospital with an irregular heartbeat: “The idea of President Quayle is giving us *all * irregular heartbeats.”
Now, there’s irony if ever there was. The idea of President Jesse Jackson wasn’t exactly soothing.
He’d have been like Lincoln, compared to the present occupant of the White House.
So would Dan Quayle. 
–violent shudder–
I call that the Spiro Syndrome.
IIRC Nixon picked Ford as his VP because he thought Ford was impeachment insurance.
The Dems (in Congress) have not yet really owned up to the fact that they too shirked their Constitutional obligation to be the declarers of war. (The whole Congress has, really, for the past 40 years). Congressmen who authorize a President to conduct an undeclared war sound like complete Monday morning quarterbacks when they start taking potshots after the war (predictably) goes badly. Dems who say “Oh, I might have voted differently if the Administration had given us the real facts” are just as lame as the GOP when it keeps insisting “Oh, but everyone else believed the WMD lies [which we were peddling], and besides, we had to invade to uphold the sovereignty of the UN [which conservatives have spent the past 40 years rightly decrying].”
The fencing between the Dem candidates on why they initially supported the war (or the even funnier attempts by war supporters to attack non-supporters like Obama as somehow inconsistent) is as unseemly as the Republicans’ Kool-Aid insistence that anyone who opposes the war is a traitor.
Finally, I doubt a Cheney administration would look much different, for the reasons cited. Cheney has been on board with the neocon puppetmasters all along and there’s no reason to think he has any additional policy priorities that he hasn’t been able to implement already, though I find the “evil” rhetoric kind of OTT.
Hard to believe, since Ford was minority leader, and pretty much liked by all of Congress.
As for President Cheney, after the sympathy period was over, his approval ratings would make Shrub’s look astronomical.
After everything Bush and Cheney have done to destroy America’s reputation in the world, I doubt people would have much sympathy for us.
Looking back, Ford is now seen as a thoughtful, pragmatic, moderate Republican. None of these adjectives apply to Cheney. At the time, we all wondered if Ford was up to the task, but the republic came out in good shape. But we all questioned Ford’s qualifications and capability, not the fitness of his character. With Cheney it would be quite the opposite. Would a man who refuses to admit that any mistakes were made with respect to Iraq be qualified to lead until 2009? I say no.
Cheney would probably say, “I’m not a Lincoln. I’m a Rolls fucking Royce.”
make mine FUCK, NO!
We’ve had impeachments before. Cheney would be the first POTUS in history to be seized by a lynch mob and hanged from a lamppost on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Or so one hopes.
Heh.