I'm in charge now!

Alexander Haig passed away at the age of 85. He was the Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan when Reagan was shot in march of 1981 (was it really almost 30 years ago?!?). My lasting memory of Haig was him claiming, "I'm in charge now." as Reagan went into surgery and the VP, Bush, was out of the country. My memory was that is was said contentiously and emphatically. Thanks to CNN who have the clip of the newsconference up on their website today, I now have a more clear picture of what happened. He was actually very calm and there wasn't much discussion about him being correct.

He merely said that he's in control of what's going on at the White House until Bush returns and was in no way taking premature authority. Granted, he did say "Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the President, the Vice President and the Secretary of State in that order..." which is not true. After the VP, you have the Speaker of the House and then the President Pro Tempore of the Senate. But Haig meant what was happing practically at the White House.