Concerning your question about Bush still being president, the answer is NO. Bush has left the Office of President, and could not be brought back into power according to the constitution. If Obama were to be removed from office for the reasons you are asking about, or for any other reason via impeachment, the line of succession is clear. The Vice President would be in line to replace the former sitting President.
wb, I agree with you that Bush is out, his 2 terms are up and the constitutional 2 term limitation prevents him from ever being president again.
I don't know much about the constitution or how rigorously it works, but I came across this comment after a search in Quora - I thought the commenter, Edward, makes quite a compelling scenario:
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https://www.quora.com/How-many-time...t-of-the-U-S-A-What-is-a-written-law-about-it
"I see a great deal of misunderstanding in the comments here. Unfortunately, the misunderstanding is interspersed with accurate information, so I will try to tease out the accurate information from the misconceptions.
The controlling Amendment is the 22nd Amendment. The operative section is section1:
Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
"This is one of the most poorly worded of the amendments, because it is ambiguous. On the other hand, this ambiguity has never caused a problem. Our founders did leave many things to the political process, and the situation that would reveal the ambiguity has never occurred, amost entirely, if not entirely for political reasons.
Here is where the ambiguity exists:
"Suppose a President is elected twice to the Presidency (
or once to the Presidency after having served two years of a term to which someone else was elected.)
Then suppose some subsequent election, the former (or outgoing) President runs as Vice-President. The ticket wins, and then the newly elected President resigns, elevating the former President to the Presidency.
In this case, the President who is beginning this hypothetical third term was not elected to this third term, so the third-term President is abiding the letter of the Constitution.
"Of course, such a person would be stepping all over the
spirit of the Twenty-second amendment. This would seem to indicate an error in drafting the Twenty-second amendment, and I know of no credible scholar or publication that suggests this wording was intentional to permit just this scenario.
If someone tried this, it would cause an uproar far worse than the 2000 Presidential election. At least for now, the political process would prevent a former President from running as a Vice-Presidential candidate.
"But there is a less henious situation. Suppose a former President decided to run for Congress and became the Speaker of the House. And suppose both the President and Vice-President die, resign or are rendered somehow incapable of serving. What then? Could the former President serve a third term, given that he was un-elected?
Well, again, no former President has served in Congress since Andrew Johnson entered the Senate after his Presidential term (and the only other person to enter Congress after being President was John Quincy Adams.) So the political process alone has made this a moot point.
"If this very unlikely situation were to arise, I cannot predict how it would turn out. It would depend upon a number of factors. I would think that it would require strange political circumstances for this to be politically acceptable.
One scenario that might permit this is if we were at war, the former President were well respected during her (his) two terms of service, and the President and VP were killed by an enemy attack. In that case, I could see the American people rallying behind the third term.
Other than that, I think it would be a major political crisis.
"So to most people's understanding, a President can serve up to ten years, completing up to two years of a term to which someone else was elected and two terms on her (his) own.
No President since Franklin D. Roosevelt, however, has served more than eight years."
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So I thought, in light of Jeb Bush with possible push for presidential candidacy 2020 - and in light of what appears to be a concerted attempt to slowly nurture back a rise for 'popularity' of George W Bush through man-of-the-people type TV-time such as on Jimmy Kimmel… One wonders if such a possibility for a 3rd Term stage could well be in the works via somehow riding in on the back of 'Trojan horse' lil bro "President Jeb" - with the Cs being 3D-literal 'correct' after-all... Coz, hey, anything now possible in these, like, craaaaaaazy times, right?
And to reiterate Edward here: "...the former President were
well respected during her (his) two terms of service,"
- with Bush "both
one of the most popular and unpopular U.S. presidents in history" (Wikipedia
George W. Bush - Wikipedia) - And given how more and more polarized and divisive the bewildered herd are in choosing whom they want representing leadership....? All it takes is for the right climate and the fertilising of particular events converging at the right time... And
Hey presto - Craaaaaaaaaaazy times!