Constitutional Crisis Averted. 

Cracker-barrel Humorist Takes Office.

(Photo: Alejandro Meteos)

No one was hurt in this process - the ASPCA was happy with how the pets were treated. But the nation had an wake-up moment.

The Vice President had been making inane goofs for years. Mis-speaking, etc. Really embarrassing gaffes at times. Some just quietly referred to his being an "old white guy."

It was in his medical checkups which lead to some problems. Seems he had something going on with his brain that wasn't normal Some said it was too many years in the Senate, which had done that to a few people. The bottom line is that he was getting more demented all the time. Meanwhile, he was going to get worse at embarrassing people and himself - and the Administration.

So he resigned "to spend more time with his family."

How I got here.

Kind of a funny story. You see, I've never even campaigned for a job. The most public post I ever did was a junior member of a local water board in a rural county. Otherwise, I kept mostly to the farm and out of politics. Other than cussing their stupidity when I listened to what passes for "news", I kept pretty quiet.

It was the Governor who set me up. Seems a representative quit (signed up with a Washington lobbyist firm) and my name came up as an "Independent" who could fill the shoes for the rest of that term. So there I was, a greenhorn in Washington, nearly as naive as Jimmy Stewart's character.

When the VP had to be replaced, someone came up with this great idea to put me in there.

You see, I have this great habit of responding to the press with quotes from midwestern humorists like Mark Twain and Will Rogers - sometimes even Ben Franklin. The press loved this. And they'd seek me out for interviews and talk shows to "add color" to the normal old white guy talking heads.

Afterall, it was only going to be the last two years of a term - what could happen?

My rise to popular fame.

And then I found Twitter and my staff started sending out tweets with these types of quote in them. They set up a Facebook page and had fun with this. (I swear I didn't have anything to do with these. Really.) That made me even more popular. Rogers and Twain and Franklin had some really pithy things to say at times. All I had to do was sit and do my reading, plus sign some papers and do some voting.

You see, I was just there to hold the spot until the next election. I didn't have any concerns about "leaving a legacy" or anything. Just represent the people in my little gerrymandered district, and vote the way I think they thought.

But the media loved me. Because I quoted others people and made politics interesting. Particularly after the big speeches.

So, being an Independent and loved by the media (and the Twitterverse) - I was someone's great choice to fill out the VP's shoes for the last couple of years of this presidency. It would make people love the President and his decisions, I was told. (I had my doubts, but just gave another pithy quote as a reply - which make the news.)

Filling some big shoes

I had just started settling into the schedule of meeting and greeting, and spent my spare time boning up on my reading - and then the "crisis" happened.

Someone found (hacked) their way into all these emails between the President and a huge amount of others. Then they dumped them on the Internet, duplicating them on all sorts of foreign sites so they couldn't be taken down.

Turns out there were more than a few skeletons besides Solyndra, Fast and Furious, Immigration, secret negotiations with rogue nations, etc.  Quite a few more.

Yes, they're still looking for the guy (or gal) and plan to extradite him to an unknown prison. But the horses were out of the barn, so the doors could fall off for all anyone cared about that barn anymore.

And the only unelected President in history took office. Which someone said was a crisis on its own.

Since I was an "Independent" - I took the obvious logical step first. I told everyone I wasn't running for re-election, that fixing this mess was more than enough work for me. I laid it all out in a memorandum and sent it to all the media. (Drudge got his copy first, though.)

I just let everyone squabble over what they wanted to do. I had a lot of mess to sort out. Lots of mess.

First steps.

Well, I gave the former President an amnesty, whether he wanted it or not. He certainly didn't ask for it. He was busy vacationing in Norway while it all settled down. Figured they'd love him there for his Nobel Prize and was too far away for the media to hound him (although they gave it a try.) We talked on the phone a couple of times, but he was pretty miffed about his legacy being ruined before his eyes.

Next was simply suspending all his executive orders and memoranda pending review. Because some of those emails pointed out that he hadn't been exactly truthful about his background - and might not have actually be qualified to be elected for the job. So I gave all the legal guys some room to move - and meanwhile, took out a lot of these quibbles which were happening all around.

I started giving some Saturday talks which were simply fun - optimistic and upbest. "America's best days are ahead", was the theme. Then both parties and any one with a dog in the fight could give a response.

Seemed fair. I had a job to do in cleaning everything up. People could do what they wanted.

So that's how I got there.