Gail Collins's "Time for Him to Go"

Gail Collin wrote a semi-serious column this morning with an interesting point of view, which doesn't happen very often. Here's what she said:

Thanksgiving is next week, and President Bush could make it a really special holiday by resigning.

Seriously. We have an economy that’s crashing and a vacuum at the top. Bush — who is currently on a trip to Peru to meet with Asian leaders who no longer care what he thinks — hasn’t got the clout, or possibly even the energy, to do anything useful. His most recent contribution to resolving the fiscal crisis was lecturing representatives of the world’s most important economies on the glories of free-market capitalism.

Putting Barack Obama in charge immediately isn’t impossible. Dick Cheney, obviously, would have to quit as well as Bush. In fact, just to be on the safe side, the vice president ought to turn in his resignation first. (We’re desperate, but not crazy.) Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would become president until Jan. 20. Obviously, she’d defer to her party’s incoming chief executive, and Barack Obama could begin governing.

I actually agree with her. It's not so much that I think George Bush is a horrible president, even though he is, but that he wasted all his political capital long ago on Iraq and a number of other failures and can provide almost zero leadership through this economic crisis. To have anyone else leading the country-- Democrat, Republican, Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, Barack Obama-- would be an improvement at this point. I know he'll never actually resign, but it would be nice to see...