Presidential Disability

John Avarosis, at Americablog, notes that there is increasing chatter that Bush has gone off the deep end mentally and may no longer be fit for office (as if he ever was). John points out that the 25th. Amendment provides a way to remedy that by removing him from office without impeachment. Unfortunately, that would make Dick Cheney the president. Frankly, even if Bush is totally batty, I doubt Cheney would be any better, and he might be far worse.

If there were some real likelihood of a foreign power, such as the Soviet Union used to be, attacking and overwhelming us, I might think differently, but there is no such likelihood. Yes, another terrorist attack is a real possibility, but I doubt a Cheney administration would handle that much differently than a madman's administration. We are not prepared to stop an attack, and that is as much Cheney's fault as it is Bush's. And, the hacks, like Brownie, who have been put in charge of emergency recovery operations, are just as likely to have been hired at Cheney's urging as at Bush's. The only difference is that Cheney may be a more deeply evil person than Bush, and may push his anti-democratic agenda even further.

Of course, this is all idle chatter. No matter how mad he is, the Republicans are not going to admit it anytime soon. But, the very fact that we are in a fix where a mad man may be better than our vice president is quite disturbing.