Skip to main content

Succession Worries, Palin, McCain, Lieberman, Four Reporters in Five Acts


Most reporters in Connecticut appear to think that John McCain, should he buck the odds and become president, will die in office approximately 30 seconds after he has been sworn in, leaving Vice President Sarah Palin to discharge the awesome duties of the presidency.

They speculate that she will not be up to the task, and four of them, according to a report in the Hartford Courant by Mark Pazniokas, have brought their worries to Sen. Joe Lieberman, a McCain supporter.

Lieberman consulted some actuaries and told the reporters that reports of McCain’s imminent demise, to paraphrase Mark Twain, have been greatly exaggerated.

Naturally, this did not convince the reporters.


“Lieberman initially sidestepped a question about Palin's readiness to be president on day one.

"’She's not going to have to be president from day one because McCain is going to be alive and well. I've been talking to actuaries and doctors,’ Lieberman said. ‘He can be expected to live to his mid-80s and probably longer.’

“When pressed about when she would be ready, Lieberman replied, ‘Well, let's hope she never has to be ready.’

“He laughed, then quickly added, ‘Because we hope McCain is elected and lives out his term.’”


Historians might tend to agree with Lieberman.

Here is a list of US Presidents who have died in office, what they died of, and their ages at the time of their demise:


William Henry Harrison -- Pneumonia and Pleurisy -- age 68

Zachary Taylor -- Bad cherries and milk – age 65

Abraham Lincoln -- Assassinated by John Wilkes Booth – age 56

James A. Garfield -- Assassinated by Charles Julius Guiteau -- age 49

William McKinley -- Assassinated by Leon Frank Czolgosz -- age 58

Warren G. Harding -- Heart attack, some speculation of murder age 57

Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- Cerebral hemorrhage age 63

John Fitzgerald Kennedy -- Assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald – age 46

Everything of course is relative, but most of the presidents whose terms in office were interrupted by death were, relatively speaking, young. In every case, the Vice presidents had some time in office to prepare themselves for their presidential journeys.

The dream of the anti-Palin crowd that McCain, upon assuming office, will take his leave in so short a time that Palin will not be able to assume office and discharge her responsibilities with the same energy and dispatch as, say, Harry Truman, is pretty far fetched. Actuaries would bet against it.

Yet his notion has become standard fare among reporters who want Democrat presidential nominee Barrack Obama as president and who are unwilling to examine the possibility that Obama – verily a heart beat from the presidency – may not be ready to assume these grave responsibilities at such a dangerous moment in US history.

Which is, come to think of it, is precisely the argument Lieberman presented to the four reporters of the apocalypse, whose names, for some unaccountable reason, Pazniokas does not mention in his story.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Murphy Thingy

It’s the New York Post, and so there are pictures. One shows Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy canoodling with “Courier Newsroom publisher Tara McGowan, 39, last Monday by the bar at the Red Hen, located just one mile north of Capitol Hill.”   The canoodle occurred one day or night prior to Murphy’s well-advertised absence from President Donald Trump’s recent Joint Address to Congress.   Murphy has said attendance at what was essentially a “campaign rally” involving the whole U.S. Congress – though Democrat congresspersons signaled their displeasure at the event by stonily sitting on their hands during the applause lines – was inconsistent with his dignity as a significant part of the permanent opposition to Trump.   Reaching for his moral Glock Murphy recently told the Hartford Courant that Democrat Party opposition to President Donald Trump should be unrelenting and unforgiving: “I think people won’t trust you if you run a campaign saying that if Donald Trump is ...

The PURA soap opera continues in Connecticut: Business eyeing the exit signs

The trouble at PURA and the two energy companies it oversees began – ages ago, it now seems – with the elevation of Marissa Gillett to the chairpersonship of Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulation Authority.   Connecticut Commentary has previously weighed in on the controversy: PURA Pulls The Plug on November 20, 2019; The High Cost of Energy, Three Strikes and You’re Out? on December 21, 2024; PURA Head Butts the Economic Marketplace on January 3, 2025; Lamont Surprised at Suit Brought Against PURA on February 3, 2025; and Lamont’s Pillow Talk on February 22, 2025:   The melodrama full of pratfalls continues to unfold awkwardly.   It should come as no surprise that Gillett has changed the nature and practice of the state agency. She has targeted two of Connecticut’s energy facilitators – Eversource and Avangrid -- as having in the past overcharged the state for services rendered. Thanks to the Democrat controlled General Assembly, Connecticut is no l...

Lamont Surprised at Suit Brought Against PURA

Marissa P. Gillett, the state's chief utility regulator, watches Gov. Ned Lamont field questions about a new approach to regulation in April 2023. Credit: MARK PAZNIOKAS / CTMIRROR.ORG Concerning a suit brought by Eversource and Avangrid, Connecticut’s energy delivery agents, against Connecticut’s Public Utility Regulatory Agency (PURA), Governor Ned Lamont surprised most of the state’s political watchers by affecting surprise.   “Look,” Lamont told a Hartford Courant reporter shortly after the suit was filed, “I think it is incredibly unhelpful,” Lamont said. “Everyone is getting mad at the umpires.   Eversource is not getting everything they want and they are bringing suit. It was a surprise to me. Nobody notified me. I think we have to do a better job of working together.”   Lamont’s claim is far less plausible than the legal claim made by Eversource and Avangrid. The contretemps between Connecticut’s energy distributors and Marissa Gillett , Gov. Ned Lamont’s ...