Heartbeat Away

The nomination of Sarah Palin as the Republican Vice Presidential candidate is a sobering and serious event considering the history of that office over the past 60 years. During that time three Vice Presidents have become President without being elected to that office.

Harry S. Truman was thrust into the Presidency upon the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt; Lyndon Baines Johnson became President when John F. Kennedy was assassinated; and Gerald Ford ascended to the office when Richard M. Nixon, facing impeachment, resigned.

The fact that the Vice President is but a heartbeat away from the Presidency was also underscored with the assassination attempts on Presidents Ford and Ronald Reagan. Had they not survived, Vice Presidents Nelson Rockefeller and George H.W Bush would have become Presidents.

Two other VPs actually stood in temporarily when Section 4 of the 25th Amendment -- replacement of the President under health circumstances -- was applied. Nixon was the stand-in President during three illnesses of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the first Bush stepped in during Reagan's colonoscopy.

So, while Palin's qualifications as a person able to field dress a moose and cheer on her hockey playing children while still governing the country's least populous state are interesting, do they prepare her to step into perhaps the most powerful office on the planet on a moment's notice? How one answers that question becomes academic if 57 days from now U.S. voters elect the McCain-Palin ticket. But think for just a moment about the comparison of Palin with HST, LBJ and Ford in the context of preparation for the Presidency. 

That's what I'm talking about.