ACK! President Boehner for 20 Minutes?

n/t

Half true -- I don't think luck has anything to do with it. I'm pretty sure that the rules of succession were covered by the Constitution, not a roll of the dice.

As originally ratified, the Constitution provided only that "In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected."

The 25th Amendment added the following provision to deal with the situation where there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President (but not in the office of the President -- i.e., whenever the VP becomes President, a new VP gets named): "Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress."

The order of succession that applies if both the office of the President and of the VP are simultaneously vacant is set by statute.

Anyway, Thanks for the correction

Until the 25th amendment was ratified, it was possible for there to be a president and no vice president. Indeed, there were any number of periods where that was the case. And yet, it never ever crossed anyone's mind that the president couldn't leave the country during those periods of times without transforming the Speaker of the House into the acting president.

The current presidential line of succession, as specified by the United States Constitution and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 is: Vice President of the United States Joe Biden (D), and secondly Speaker of the House John Boehner (R). Very few times are the President and Vice President together in a non-tightly controlled environment, the presidential inauguration is one such occasion in which this is true. If the unthinkable happened, and both President Obama and Vice President Biden should die, a Republican, John Boehner would be our President. John Boehner's policies would be the exact opposite of those of President Obama and Vice President Biden's. The presidential line of succession should be changed so that the presidency would not switch parties if there was a co-ordinated attack by madmen on both the President and Vice President.

Since Truman, the Speaker of the House and the President/VP have been from different parties more often than not: From 1946-48, 1954-1960, 1968-1976, 1980-1992, 1994-2000, 2006-2008, and 2010 to present. Twenty-eight of those years, the President/VP was a repub and the Speaker was a Democrat; only 10 years was the President/VP a Democrat and the Speaker a repub. Neither party would support making the change you propose. After Truman succeeded to the Presidency upon FDR's death, there was no VP and a republican speaker. But no one proposed the change you have suggested.

it would be just like them to take advantage of this time to somehow find additional ways to screw the poor, the sick, the disabled, the students and the dwindling middle class and somehow steal more money from us for their rich friends.

Just because Boner is in the line of succession 'after' Biden,
and Obama and Biden will both be out of The USA and not on U.S. soil does NOT change the current status of Boehner one iota.

This is laughable!

Talk about creating a story from nothing.

...you don't get to be Acting President just by being the top official in the US. The President still gets to be President when he's out of town.

He'd have to be sworn in as President.

Obama and Biden are both still very much alive. So Bonehead is still third in line.