There Is Still Time for Kamala
Somebody needs to perform the duties of the President for the next two and a half months.
People like me often say — not too jokingly this year — that our first choice for President is “None of the Above”. Unfortunately, None isn’t on the ballot.1 Dispensing with the President also isn’t consistent with our country’s Constitutional framework. “Energy in the Executive”, as Alexander Hamilton termed it, was one of the three features of the American government that the French revolutionaries most abhorred. (The other two were separation of powers and the role of the states.)
Our country can no more function without a President than an automobile can run without a battery. We are, moreover, entering an especially perilous period of transition from the former Administration to its successor. Among the “known knowns” are Iran’s threatened revenge attack on Israel, a nascent Russian sabotage campaign and the likely renewal of the East Coast port strike when the current union contract expires on January 15th. This is not the time for a headless regime, where shadowy aides squabble over responses to crises and the decision maker is a jumped-up “doctor” next to whom Edith Wilson was a world class statesman.
The torch of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.’s intellect is sputtering out. While that is a misfortune of age rather than a moral fault, it is a fact that we all can see. The vain, vindictive, blustering, semi-somnolent shadow of a never impressive figure exudes only negative energy. His continuance in office for 75 days remaining in his term is an unnecessary risk to the country and an injury to a man who can only trample on the shards of his own reputation if he continues in a role to which he is no longer equal.
It is time, in other words, for Kamala Harris Emhoff to break the glass ceiling and become, with one bloodied fist (shattered glass is dangerous), the first woman and the first person of recent African descent with only a trace of white ancestry and the first Indian (Asian) to become President of the United States.
It’s true that the Vice President’s judgment has been called into question and that she was worse than unimpressive in both of her two ventures on the Presidential campaign trail. Nonetheless, a fully compos mentis President is better than the alternative.
Her ascension would also solve a problem for her predecessor-to-be. She could issue Hunter Biden’s inevitable pardon, sparing Papa Joe the embarrassment. Perhaps that would be sufficient inducement for his voluntary departure.
Although the tone of this post may be disrespectful, my point is quite serious. The world is too dangerous to trust that its most powerful nation will somehow muddle through. The divine protection that the Iron Chancellor discerned for fools, drunkards and the United States of America cannot be counted on indefinitely/
I was disappointed to discover that Nevada offers that option only for the lesser offices.