This question was raised at the Courthouse this morning, among a group of lawyers waiting for docket call.
We’ve all heard about the “beer summit” with Obama, Gates, and Crowley. Joe Biden joined the party. Both POTUS and VPOTUS were drinking beer, and arguably under the influence thereof. If NORAD had detected an incoming nuclear attack, who had the authority to order the counterstrike?
No authority is removed from the President because he drank beer. There is no law or regulation that removes his authority even if he is blind stinking drunk and sucking on a crack pipe.
The Cabinet, under the procedures specified Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, can temporarily relieve the President of his authority if they resolve that he is unable to discharge his duties. However, power would then devolve on the presumably equally intoxicated VP.
It’s also worth mentioning that in the case of nuclear weapons, statute requires the consent of the National Command Authority, which is defined as consisting of the President (or whoever is Acting President) and the Secretary of Defense (or whoever is Acting Secretary.) So the President would have to get the Sec Def drunk too in order to press the big red button.
Also worth noting that even under the incredibly unlikely circumstances that President Obama got so ripsnortingly drunk at a photo op that his judgement was seriously impaired, Joe Biden is a teetotaler who was drinking Buckler.
So averting nuclear war depended on Robert Gates’ standing up to the President and telling him the decisions he was making were wrong?
Al Haig’s still alive, isn’t he?
Leaving aside the authority situation, Biden was reported by MSNBC last night to be drinking a particular non-alcoholic beer that apparently was a favorite of Pres. G.W. Bush. (Can’t recall the name.) So even if alcohol could play a factor, I suspect that drinking a 0.5% ABV/ABW beer won’t get you disqualified from anything of importance.
Edit: …aaaand I miss Cmdoverbite pointing that out and naming the near-beer in question. D’oh.
I think** Friedo** has given the textbook answer, which I appreciate. However, that would be a hell of a position for any POTUS to be in. If I had to order the launch of a nuke, I’d want to be absolutely stone cold sober when I did it. I suspect any rational person would feel the same. Nukes are that serious. At the same time, Presidents sometimes are in situations where drinking is expected…state dinners and such. Granted, most high level Pols aren’t going to be doing Jaeger shots or anything, but still…kinda makes ya think…
I wonder if the Freepers are making a big stink about this very matter.
(No, I don’t want to go there and find out…)
I would expect having to decide on ordering a nuke would sober you up pretty quickly! 
Hey, I launch weapons better when I’m drunk.
I think it’s absolutely unreasonable to assume that having a beer makes you “under the influence”, arguably or not.
I know we got used to eight years of having a drunk in the White House, but those days are over. Like most people, the current president is capable of having a brewski or two without loss of faculties. (This is not meant as a criticism of the previous president – I love criticizing him about all sorts of things, but the fact that he was an alcoholic isn’t one of them; indeed, he is to commended for resisting the pressure to drink on the job knowing that he, unlike most of us, was not in a position to drink in moderation.)
–Cliffy
Does anyone know why Joe Biden does not drink any alcoholic beverages?
Religious reasons?
Alcohol abuse problems?
Just dosent care for it?
Actually, averting nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis involved the Llewellyn ‘Tommy’ Thompson, a minor Cabinet advisor to President Kennedy, standing up and contradicting the rest of the President’s advisors in the interpretation of a pair of messages from Secretary Khruschev. If not for this, the US would have struck at or attempted to invade Cuba (based upon poor intelligence that warheads were not delivered) and would have likely ended up a general war with the Soviet Union.
Compared to that, a President with a couple of beers in him is nothing.
Stranger
History of alcoholism in the family.
"Though Joe Sr. was not a heavy drinker, alcohol flowed freely in the Finnegan house and in the neighborhood. Joe Jr. saw the toll it took on his family, his neighbors and, later, on his little brother Frankie. “Every family had it,” said Tom Bell, one of Senator Biden’s childhood friends from Scranton who remains close to him. “But the Finnegans had more than their share.”
Senator Biden does not drink at all, and he is frank about the reason. ‘There are enough alcoholics in my family,’ he said last month as he sipped cranberry juice on a train ride from Washington to Wilmington."
Father’s Tough Life an Inspiration for Biden
Thanks Pravnik—Sounds like Biden is using good caution, which is certainly admirable…
Yeah if he can’t operate the nuclear football after a couple of bud lites, he’s a damn lightweight
I understand Nixon effectively had launch authority taken away from him during the last days of his regime, as he was a drunken mess and his cabinet were worried he might do something stupid. Though this was an unoffical thing not any kind of formal protocol.
So says Kissinger, anyway. Of course, Kiss was not adverse to embellishing a story for more drama.
Stranger
