What if everything goes to shit. . .

Here’s Digby on the various plans of the administration to provide continuity-in-government in case of disaster, including the the potential postponement of elections. Here’s Meteor Blades at Kos discussing the same thing. From Digby:

If this is any guide at all, there is absolutely no reason to believe that they would hesitate to suspend elections, institute martial law and stage a coup. Indeed, it appears they’ve been training to do just that for more than 20 years.

Yeah, it’s a bit troubling that Rummy and Cheney have been thinking about undisclosed locations for thirty years. And yeah, I wish that the power to postpone an election would never fall into the hands of someone like Tom Ridge. But let’s stop for a second and think about what we’re asking, here.

It was entirely sensible for the Reagan, Ford, Carter, and every other administration of the Cold War to think about preserving government in case of nuclear attack. Even a limited nuclear exchange would almost certainly have wiped out Congress, the President, and most of the cabinet. Such an exchange was unthinkable but not impossible, meaning that we had to think about it. If the Clinton administration shut down this program (as the Atlantic article contends) they were wrong to do so. Post-Soviet Russia was probably more likely to launch a nuclear attack (through error) than the Soviet Union was. In a world with nukes, the decapitation of U.S. leadership is always possible, and their needs to be a plan to deal with the aftermath. It’s too bad that Cheney and Rummy have made it their special little area, but someone has to. It’s sensible thinking, not a coup.

Postponing elections is a lot more tricky. I’m inclined to think that there are situations in which postponing the election would be a good idea. An attack as large as 9/11 on or immediately prior to election day would probably be very disruptive to voting. An attack worse that 9/11, involving WMDs and killing LOTS of people, would of course be extremely disruptive. Would these scenarios call for a postponement of the election? Maybe, maybe not, but it’s worth thinking about, and it’s certainly a discussion we should have in the open, with concrete criteria for postponement and a set of specific plans for the timing and conduct of a new election.

This is where people should be directing their energy; making the process as open and democratic as possible. Ridge, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are doing exactly what I hope Democrats would do in their place. I would much rather have Democrats doing this job, because I trust them more and don’t believe they’re as likely to use terror for political gain, but we can’t do anything about that until November. We need a set of plans to deal with either decapitation or the postponement of an election; hollering about the threat of a coup isn’t really all that helpful.

Update: Nice summary of the blogoverse discussion here. The best arguments on either side don’t declare the administration a bunch of autocrats, or raise fears of a coup d’etat. A few people have pointed out that a terrorist attack will likely have local, not national, consequences, and thus that any preparations should be for a local postponement. Fine by me, as long as plans are flexible enough to deal with a larger attack. Last point: It’s really Democrats who should be most worried about the effect of terror on the election. Terrorists don’t blow up the places where Republicans live; they attack cities, where Democrats live, and any disenfranchisement will fall more heavily on the Dems.