Who's the President?

[Thomas Thorne]

Tom Clancy' novels depicted the rise of CIA analyst,Jack Ryan to the presidency but alas it was unconstitutional. Just as the House and Senate in joint session are about to select Ryan as VP with the President in attendance, a terrorist flies an airliner into the Capitol killing everybody in the House chamber except Jack Ryan,Clancy's alter ego and Ryan becomes President.

As the book was written in 1994 we can applaud Clancy's prescience about 9/11 but deplore his ignorance of the subtleties of presidential succession. The Senate and House would not be sitting in the same room approving a VP pick but would be voting separately in their respective chambers possibly on different dates. It is very unlikely the President would be present during these events. Certainly Ryan would actually have to be actually have been elected VP before he could become President in this scenario.

This begs the issue of whether or not Ryan could not be considered VP until he took the Vice Presidential oath of office which is the same as the oath given any Federal executive or legislative official other than the President. There is an enormous jesusitical debate on the subject of whether or not a vice president becomes president upon the death of the president and his first action as president is to take the constitutionally prescribed oath or the theory that the VP can't become president until and unless he takes the oath of office. I vote for the first proposition.
Tom