Pre-Election Day Series: Chasing Pirate Ryan – A Crucial Unexamined Question: Presidential Succession
Introducing . . .
Chasing Pirate Ryan
Chasing Pirate Ryan is a series that will run (no pun intended) from Saturday, November 3rd through election day next Tuesday ( and beyond if election results are inconclusive, controversial, hilarious, surreal, or sure to be contested by either party).
Like a hilariously infamous pirate captain Jack Sparrow of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, Paul Ryan has occasionally sought solace from the madding crowd only to have his solace rudely interrupted. For example, when the Romney campaign believed he was a hot air balloon they could ride to the stratosphere, Mr. Ryan was everywhere on the cmpaign trail. Once, however, the polls made clear he was more an anchor than a sail, Mr. Ryan was sent afar. Last week he was eyeballed in Alabama, South Carolina, and Georgia, states well outside the swing state state empire. There, he was unleashed – like a political Jack Sparrow – to separate true believers from their cash.
Our pre-election series, Chasing Pirate Ryan, will take a look at Congressman Ryan – The-Man -Who-Would-Be-Vice-President – to revisit his belief system, chock full of attitudes that lead him to his tight-fisted, laissez faire, and punitive social policy positions. From Medicare to tax policy, from abortion to God knows what, Mr. Ryan’s mind bears looking into.
To begin the Chasing Pirate Ryan series on a serious note, let’s openly consider what has not been considered much, if at all: the potential that a Vice President Paul Ryan might, through tragic circumstances, succeed a President Romney to the Presidency, without the intervening act of an election . . .
So, here we go, let’s make a dash to the finish . . .
Chasing Pirate Ryan
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| A terrible prospect. |
Should Mitt Romney win on November 6th, although it’s terrifying to consider, Paul Ryan could, in a moment, become President of the United States. I was 14, a new freshman in a new high school, when the literally stunning news of John F. Kennedy’s assassination reached us during Latin class. Soon, Vice President Lyndon Johnson was President Lyndon Johnson.
I understand how uncomfortable it would be to raise this possibility directly. We all do, I think. Nonetheless, it needs to be considered openly, for both Ryan and Biden. Each could suddenly be installed in the presidency. Simply stated, the Vice Presidential candidates in this election – in any presidential election – need more careful scrutiny. The policy distance between the presidential candidates and their running mates must be examined in the full light of history. Assassination, death in office, resignation, all these have blighted our history. In historical context, how do today’sVice Presidential hopefuls stand up under this scrutiny? It’s well known there is little or no distance between Joe Biden’s policy history and President Obama’s. The distance that does exists, also well known, is that Joe Biden might be more progressive than the President. Yet, there is no glaring difference between the two. It is equally well known that there is a wide and deep set of differences between Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney, although truly knowing what it is that Romney truly believes is a “how many angels can stand on the tip of a needle” question.
Yet, we do know that Romney equivocates and lies. Paul Ryan, how ever, is a true believer. Mentored by Ayn Rand, Grover Norquist, Arthur Laffer, Jack Kemp, and other reactionaries, he’s unrepentant, boastful, without compassion. This eminently average man, so poorly prepared for democraacy, and so full of conceit, could in the blink of an eye become President of the United States. That needs to be considered in a straight forward manner, and soon, therre’s but four days left.
So, we know what a Biden presidency would look like. I think we also know what a Ryan presidency would look like. Read Rand’s Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, and The Virtue of Selfishness. Voters, by and large, have not been asked to consider the directly. It’s understandable. Yet, supposedly, we’re adults, and all Presidential elections are among the more important events in our lives.
Let’s then openly consider a Biden versus a Ryan Presidency. The gap there is wider and as deeper than the Grand Canyon. Late as it is, we need to consider what our next “accidental President” might stand for.
