Happy Birthday, Madame President (originally aired June 7, 2006)
- Issues: Kurdish terrorist organization, nominating a new vice-president, moon landing
It's President Allen's birthday, but she has to deal with a hostage incident in Turkey and interviews with three potential vice-presidents (Texas Governor Antonio Solis, Senator Kevin Colby (R-MN) and Ambassador to China Cameron Manchester).
- Kurdish Terrorist Organization. The terrorist organization responsible for the hostage incident in this episode may be inspired by Kongra-Gel, a Kurdish separatist organization that has been designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization. According to the State Department, Kongra-Gel's goal is to establish an independent Kurdish state in southeast Turkey, northern Iraq, and parts of Iran and Syria (report on-line here).
- Nominating a New Vice President. President Allen would be only the third president to name a new vice-president while in office and the first to do so twice in a single term. In real life, the first president to name a new vice-president while in office was Richard M. Nixon, who nominated Gerald Ford to replace Spiro T. Agnew in 1973 shortly after Agnew resigned amidst charges that he had evaded paying federal taxes and had received kickbacks. Ford became president in 1974 and then nominated Nelson Rockefeller to serve as his vice president.
The Twenty-Fifth Amendment - which was created in the wake of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and ratified in 1967 - sets out the procedure for how a new vice-president takes office. The president must fill a vacancy by nominating a new vice president who can take office after being confirmed by a majority vote of both the Senate and the House of Representatives (Cabinet appointments, by contrast, are done by just the Senate).
Before the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, four presidents simply let vacancies in the vice-presidency wait until the next election. James Madison, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley all saw their vice-president die during their first term and, Madison's second vice-president even died during Madison's second term. Andrew Jackson's vice president John C. Calhoun resigned in December 1832 just weeks before the end of Jackson's first term, and so the office was simply left vacant until Martin Van Buren was sworn in as planned (Jackson and Calhoun had had a political falling-out).
- Moon Landing. Some people have tried arguing that NASA faked the first moon landing, which occurred on July 20, 1969. A NASA article rebutting such arguments is on-line here.
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By Stephen Lee
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