Presidential Succession, now, and then. . .

By Pablo Fanque
All This Is That National Affairs Editor

I'm pretty sure my fascination with Presidential succession began sometime in about 1973, when it became clear that we would actually experience once.  After the death of FDR, Harry Truman worked to clean up the succession system.  And mostly it was a good job.  We got through the JFK assassination; we got through the Nixon succession relatively unscathed. 

Things got a little weird after the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, but only because the Secretary of State, Al Haig, misspoke:  "I'm in control here."  This was a tempest in a teapot, since Haig knew from his days as Nixon's Chief of Staff exactly what the order and protocol of succession was.  Since then, all has been more or less, well.  I'll admit, 'though, that the line up during President Bush's eight year term was spooky, largely because it could have catapulted Dick Cheney into the Oval Office.  That being said, that was probably not nearly as gut-wrenching as the four long years Dan Quayle was just one heartbeat away from the Presidency. 

In the list that follows, I have also added the succession counterparts from the George W. Bush administration.  The lists don't quite match up anymore, since the Homeland Security Secretary is no longer in the top ten.

Potential successors to President Barack. H. Obama:

1 Vice President Joe Biden (VP Dick Cheney in the Bush years)
2 Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (House Speaker Dennis Hastert in the Bush years)
3 President pro tempore of the Senate Daniel Inouye (Senate President Pro Tem Ted Stevens in the Bush Years...wait...isn't he doing time now?)
4 Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the Bush years)
5 Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner (Treasury Secretary John Snow under GWB)
6 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (Donald Rumseld during the Bush years...how Rummy as Pres is such a toe curling prospect, I don't even like to think about what have happened had that went down).
7 Attorney General Eric Holder (Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during the Bush reign...wait...isn't he in jail too?)
8 Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar (No. 8 slot was formerly held by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff)
9 Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack (Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton under Bush)
10 Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke (Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns under W).
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