Jim Baird: “Let me give you a scenario and see if you are comfortable with it. John Ashcroft said last week or the week before that…”

“Let me give you a scenario and see if you are comfortable with it. John Ashcroft said last week or the week before that high-profile targets include this summer the Democratic convention and the Republican convention. I will take him at his word. If it is true that we are a high-profile target, and if you are at the Republican convention or we are at the Democratic convention and terrorists attack, let us suppose they attack during the President's speech at the Republican convention, and the president is killed, heaven forbid this should happen, if the President and Vice President are killed and a number of my good friends on your side of the aisle perish, of necessity at that point the House will have to reconvene, there will be a new majority, hence a need to elect a new Speaker. Presumably at that point the Democrats control the House of Representatives, presumably we will elect a Democratic Speaker, and, under the law of succession of 1947, that person is now in line for the Presidency of the United States.”