General Haig was never Speaker! He as WH Chief of Staff:
“The Vice President had been notified and he was flying back from Texas and in the meantime Al Haig was in control at the White House. A particularly infelicitous choice of words which, I think, already in the minds of many Reagan supporters and staff, for Al Haig to come up and say that “I, Al Haig, am in control here at the White House,” just convinced many people that, first of all he was intemperate and injudicious and not suited for the role, and further that he had vast ambitions of power in the administration which were not in keeping with the way that Reagan cabinet secretaries were expected to behave.”
You’re quite right....
General Haig was never Speaker! He as WH Chief of Staff.
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Wrong. He was Secretary of State.
At the time Haig was SecSt. He erroneously said he was in charge until Bush returned because he was next in line of succession.
He had to establish order in the White House. Intemperate words? Maybe but technically correct in running the White House staff.