In <Pine.LNX.3.96.1001110171824.730z-100000@einstein.ssz.com>, on 11/10/00 at 05:19 PM, Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com> said:
On Fri, 10 Nov 2000, William H. Geiger III wrote:
I am not sure that they would as this seems to go against the 22nd Amendment. While the 22nd doesn't specifically address an appointed acting president I doubt that the new congress would be inclined to keep Clinton around nor would they want to create more problems while trying to straighten out the current mess.
I am also not sure. It's the reason I was asking if this might be a way around the 22nd. After all it isn't an election but an appointment by Congress until the election is resolved.
I am rather torn on the issue. On the one hand leaving Clinton in would lend an appearance of stability "we are not changing anything until we get this mess sorted out" while on the other hand I feel that it would interfere with the principle that "the office is stronger than any one man". We have dealt with war & assassinations and still have been able to change Presidents without problems. As things look right now I don't see the US facing any immediate crises that would mandate keeping Clinton in office (something major like nukes going off, full scale domestic revolt, ...ect) so I am leaning to congress appointing someone other than him to act as acting President until the mess is straightened out. Wether that person is a Democrat or a Republican doesn't seem that important as he really wouldn't be doing anything unless we wind up at war with someone. If this election does wind up being decided in Congress it will be the biggest game of chicken since the Cuban Missle Crises. Should be interesting to see who blinks first. -- --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.openpgp.net Geiger Consulting Data Security & Cryptology Consulting Programming, Networking, Analysis PGP for OS/2: http://www.openpgp.net/pgp.html E-Secure: http://www.openpgp.net/esecure.html ---------------------------------------------------------------