While You Were Sleeping

Though some have suggested he has been all along, Dick Cheney became, officially, "acting president" Saturday. President George W. Bush, about to be anesthetized for a medical procedure, invoked the 25^th Amendment in a fax (see below) to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Robert Byrd, the Senate's president pro tempore.

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Congress passed the 25^th Amendment four years after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, to more precisely clarify the succession of presidential power. The amendment provides for the voluntary, temporary stepping down of the president in the event he is unable to "discharge the power and duties of his office." It also authorizes presidents to nominate a vice president in the case of a vacancy: Richard Nixon nominated Jerry Ford to the job after Vice President Spiro Agnew's resignation, and then Ford nominated Nelson Rockefeller as his replacement when Ford took over for Nixon.

Making Cheney irrefutably part of the executive branch, the letter to Byrd and Pelosi attests that, because of "a routine medical procedure requiring sedation," Bush was unable to perform his job, and declares, "the Vice President shall discharge [its] powers and duties." Cheney's formal stint as commander in chief was short-lived, however; two hours and 5 minutes later, in a second letter (Page 2), President Bush reclaimed his authority: "I am able to resume the discharge of the Constitutional powers and duties of the office."

The transfer of powers to Cheney was only the third time that particular section of the amendment has been cited. The first time was by President Reagan in 1985 and the second in 2002 during Bush's first term. All three transfers were occasioned by colonoscopy exams for the sitting president.

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