October 30, 2019--Nancy

In a government of incompetents--executive and legislative--there is one shining exception: how the House of Representatives has been handling the impeachment process.

Actually, how Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is managing the investigation.

It easily could have been a fiasco. Three or four committees of the House competing with each other for the lead role in conducting hearings would have sown more confusion than light. The public by now, with short attention spans, would have tuned out and drifted back to watching sports and Dancing With the Stars on TV. 

Trump would be tipped back in his Barka Lounger, puffing on a victory cigar while the rest of us would be left to dread what it would be like to have another four years of Trump, Fox News, Republican senators, and Rudy Giuliani.

But under Pelosi's firm direction we have seen a manageable procession of witnesses who, in the aggregate, are producing a narrative that is coherent and almost certain to lead to the impeachment of Trump and a trial in the Senate.

It is considered unlikely that the Republican-controlled Senate will vote to turn Trump out of office. Acknowledging this, allow me to spin a fantasy--

The aggregated evidence of how Trump's behavior has imperiled our national security is so compelling that before Thanksgiving he is impeached by the House. New evidence emerges that his high crimes and misdemeanors are so felonious that 20 GOP senators vote to expel him. This, along with all Democratic senators, is enough to turn him out of office. 

Mike Pence becomes president and as in the past we do not have a Vice President. (For example during the second term of the Nixon presidency.)

The House Intelligence Committee continues its work, this time with Pence under the microscope. Evidence accumulates quickly that he was even more directly involved than Trump in impeachable behavior when it came to pressuring Ukraine to dig up dirt about the Bidens. 

As a result he is impeached and voted out of office, again by the Senate.

We thus do not have a president until the next in line is sworn in.

The 25th Amendment on presidential succession requires that when there is neither a sitting president nor vice president--the Speaker of the House becomes president.

This means Speaker Nancy Pelosi becomes president.

We would finally have a woman serving as our commander-in-chief. A tough and competent one at that.