I wouldn’t worry about that.
Even though he has the ‘football’, the President alone can’t launch or authorize any nuke attack. If I recall, we have a ‘two-man rule’. That is, there has to be a second senior military official who has to concur with the President’s launch order. I believe in this case it would have to be the SecDef as the second man, with the launch order going through them to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
I don’t know about Sec. Gates, but do you see the C-JCS relaying the President’s order when it appears that the President has gone looney-tunes? I don’t see a “bolt-out-of-the-blue” nuke attack, authorized by a possibly insane President, being carried out.
I wouldn’t be so worried about Obama attempting to initiate a nuclear strike. I am terrified that if we were launched upon by Iran, Obama might refuse to retaliate.