It’s About Making Babies!

An obscure political/science fiction novel from a few years back comes to mind. The General’s President. This books seems almost prophetic now. The premise is the VP is unfit, and the President has a nervous breakdown. So the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Uniformed Services steps in with the Secretary of State – and talk an outside businessman (from Duluth, MN) into taking over as Vice President – so the President can resign and get treatment.

And I don’t think this is that far fetched.

Gerald Ford was not elected President. He was elected to Congress – and as Speaker of the House after Richard Nixon’s VP left office in a scandal, and then Nixon resigned – Speaker of the House is the next in line for President.

We could see Joe Biden fumble, but we could actually see President Pelosi sworn in before 2010. 2010 is important – because without whipping-boy President Bush, the Democratic Congress will have nothing to hide behind. The next election will leave the Democratic leadership swinging in the breeze (my second prediction).

Because I don’t think Obama can take it. I don’t think Obama has a clue about leadership, about the Presidency, and I think he is completely overwhelmed.

The “diversity” of his cabinet? Floundering. He doesn’t appear to think that packing the cabinet with Clinton retreads is a threat to his power, his prestige – or his ability to work. Yes, he is paying off all his political “debts” – but he is seating a ton of power-hungry Clintonites at the dinner table.

Various sources have criticized President-elect Obama’s silence about foreign affairs, about Israel and Hama, about other issues. Mostly, Obama is being polite, and patriotic – refusing to step on the toes of the Commander-in-Chief, President Bush. At least, he is waiting until inauguration.

But Obama and Secy of Defense Gates are not talking about US military preparedness. No one is talking about how the Democratic Congress has starved the defense budget since Bill Clinton was elected. No one is talking about the security of the United States in terms of the ability to project force and defend our interests – including the defense of America from Chinese, Pakistani, Venezuelan, Cuban, Russian, Brazilian, and other naval and military adversaries and powers.

So I expect President-elect Obama to be overwhelmed, caught between a cabinet devoted to the Clintons, a Congress intent on enjoying their perks and powers as the have been, and a wife he had to pay off with a $30k ring for helping with his election campaign.

I expect Obama will tire of tilting at windmills, and despair of wielding effective power. I expect Obama to cringe at the coming outcry of voters that expected enlightenment and empowerment and social triumph as soon as President-elect Obama is sworn in. Many are already getting restless. Instead, Obama has surrounded himself with those powers that created the credit crisis, that built the Democratic Congress that blamed President Bush for Congress’s failure to serve the nation instead of the Democratic Party, and still maintains ties to outspoken race-haters.

Whether the Russian prediction of the collapse and fragmentation of the nation of the United States by mid-2010 comes true – the failing of crop prices, the horrific rise in cost of Genetically Modified and Patented Seed (Monstanto!), fertilizers and pesticide chemicals, and the constriction of credit may prevent significant portions of next years plantings from happening.

Transportation costs continue to rise even as fuel costs remain moderate (I expect fuel costs to rise again, and again, over the next several years). We will lose product diversity as transportation costs get bigger than the profits of selling the products. Farmers will have to destroy livestock, as they did in the Great Depression, because they can’t afford the cost to get their livestock to market. Which will reduce food available in cities and non-farming regions.

Rationing, nationalizing farms and factories – these all could come in the next couple of years. But I don’t expect Barack Obama to still be in the Oval Office. I don’t expect that any man that holds the opinions that President-elect Obama campaigned on could weather this storm. No one that idealistic, that rebellious, can grow that fast.