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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Doug R who wrote (278015)	7/19/2002 3:46:53 PM
From: jlallen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Yet another crock of crap....

To: Doug R who wrote (278015)	7/19/2002 3:54:42 PM
From: Rascal	Respond to of 769667

full article here: consortiumnews.com Excerpt: The Agnew-Nixon Option So what can the nation do if the stock markets continue to grind downward, unemployment continues to rise and the government debt continues to swell – all while Bush flounders? Is there a way to bring in a new president who can inspire confidence or offer fresh ideas for getting the country back on track? Is it really “unthinkable” to suggest that Bush step aside for the good of the country? One potential way out for the nation would be a creative use of the Agnew-Nixon model with the sequential resignation of Cheney, the appointment of a new vice president and then Bush’s resignation. That sequence enabled the country to extract itself from the Watergate debacle following the 1972 election. First, Vice President Spiro Agnew, who was facing corruption charges from his days prior to the vice presidency, resigned on Oct. 10, 1973. Then, Rep. Gerald Ford, R-Mich., was approved as Agnew’s replacement under the terms of the 25th Amendment. Next, Richard Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974, ending what President Ford memorably called “our long national nightmare.” A Cheney-Bush scenario would have similarities to the Agnew-Nixon situation as well as differences. Both Nixon and Bush had a cloud over their electoral legitimacy. Though Nixon won in a landslide in 1972, the Watergate disclosures showed that his re-election campaign had engaged in systematic dirty tricks to undermine potential Democratic challengers. In effect, Nixon arranged for the election to be between himself and George McGovern, the Democrat whom Nixon considered easiest to defeat. Bush’s electoral legitimacy might be even more tainted. Having lost the national popular vote to Gore and facing potential defeat in the Electoral College if all legal votes were counted in Florida, Bush dispatched Republican hooligans to Miami to intimidate vote counters. When a statewide recount was ordered anyway, Bush got five Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court to stop it, an unprecedented act in U.S. history. Cheney is not facing the kind of criminal charge that destroyed Agnew's career. But besides the cloud over accounting practices at Halliburton, Cheney has suffered multiple heart attacks. The first phase of an Agnew-Nixon solution would be for Cheney to step down. A Cheney resignation would let Bush pick a new vice president, who would need approval by both houses of Congress. That choice could go to a widely respected Republican, such as Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who has been at the forefront of the battle to reform U.S. accounting practices. Also, as a Vietnam-era war hero, McCain would have a more subtle understanding about the dangers of world conflict than Bush, who sat out the Vietnam War in the National Guard and appears even to have skipped a year of required guard duty. [Boston Globe, May 23, 2000] A Divided Term Another option would be to pick Gore, who arguably won Election 2000. Gore has possibly the broadest experience in coordinating government-and-business policies to achieve powerful growth for the U.S. economy. At Clinton’s side, Gore also saw how to bring what looked like uncontrollable budget deficits under control. The choice of Gore also would reflect America's tradition of fair play. If Bush were to resign after two years, the presidency would have, in effect, been split between the two men who ran a close race in 2000. A divided presidential term also would give the American people a chance to judge Gore's performance before 2004. If Gore can't turn the economy around, he could be booted out after two years, too. Granted, this Agnew-Nixon solution for easing Bush out of office is a highly unlikely scenario. But is it any stranger than the Republican drive to impeach Clinton over lying about a consensual sex act? Is it any more shocking than the U.S. Supreme Court blocking ballots of American citizens from being counted and having the popular-vote loser installed as president? The political bottom line is that the American people did not elect George W. Bush. So, they have reasonable cause to expect a change in the White House if he is found incapable of addressing the nation’s problems. The biggest obstacle to an Agnew-Nixon solution, however, would be Bush and his powerful family. In Election 2000, Bush often acted as if he were entitled to the presidency regardless of the people’s judgment. He once joked, "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier -- so long as I'm the dictator." For those reasons, senior members of both parties as well as business leaders would have to intervene to get Bush to voluntarily step aside. They would have to persuade Bush that his resignation – at least pending a possible election rematch with Gore in 2004 – would be best for the country. While the odds of such an eventuality are long indeed, it may be time for Americans to begin weighing constitutional alternatives to another 30 months of a Bush presidency. An Agnew-Nixon solution – and a quick reversal of Bush’s economic policies – could spare the people far worse consequences down the road. At minimum, a national debate about the Agnew-Nixon option might instill some urgency in the Bush administration's thinking about a realistic strategy for turning around the economy. Nothing concentrates a politician's mind like the prospect of being put out of office.

To: Doug R who wrote (278015)	7/20/2002 5:32:34 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 769667

Looking to Congress to clean business's house By Daniel Schorr Commentary The Christian Science Monitor from the July 19, 2002 edition WASHINGTON – It is not like the old days, when Americans looked to an activist president to wield power against business abuses and lead the country out of a financial morass. Vividly remembered in history are Teddy Roosevelt, the trust-busting scourge of monopolies that were bleeding the consumer, and Franklin Roosevelt, who closed the collapsing banks in 1933 and created the Securities and Exchange Commission to ride herd over corporate wrongdoing. Humorist Will Rogers called the SEC "a cop on the corner of Wall Street." In the current crisis of corporate malfeasance, with Time magazine reporting 72 percent of Americans seeing a pattern of deception, President Bush has failed so far to make himself the white knight who will slay the dragon of business wrongdoing. Bush's much-heralded speech on Wall Street calling for a new ethic of responsibility and stiffer prison sentences for fraud left America unimpressed and the stock market sinking. His speech in Birmingham, Ala., offering reassurances about the economy did no better. It is not easy for Bush to position himself as leading the charge against the culture he comes from. Questions continue over the sweetheart deals in which he was involved as a director of Harken energy in 1990. New attention is being focused on how the president packed his administration with representatives of corporate America. He has a record four former CEOs in his Cabinet – Vice President Cheney of Halliburton Corp. (now under investigation), Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill of Alcoa, Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld of General Instruments, and Commerce Secretary Don Evans of the Tom Brown Inc. energy company. At the sub-Cabinet level, you will find Army Secretary Tom White of Enron, Air Force Secretary James Roche of Northrop Grumman, and Navy Secretary Gordon England of General Dynamics. (Remember President Eisenhower's denunciation of "the military-industrial complex"?) Under the circumstances, it is Congress that has assumed the leadership role in tightening accounting regulation and making corporate executives more accountable. The Senate did not wait for a cue from the White House before passing a regulatory bill, 97 to 0, that a few weeks before would have been thought inconceivable. As bipartisan blocs continue to work on the more pervasive abuses of executive self-enrichment, manipulation of stock options, and auditor-consultant conflicts of interest, we may be nearing the end of an era of deregulation that created the climate for some of the scandalous practices being uncovered. Americans don't like government, except when things go wrong. They are ready for a crackdown, and they look to Congress rather than the business-friendly president to lead the way. • Daniel Schorr is a senior news analyst at National Public Radio. csmonitor.com