Morgen
Verum Serum
2/9/2010
All indications are that President Obama will utilize the upcoming congressional break to make one or more recess appointments of nominees currently held up in the Senate due to GOP opposition. Perhaps even controversial nominee Craig Becker, whose nomination for the National Labor Relations Board was effectively blocked today by a filibuster which included two Democrats in addition to the newest Republican, Scott Brown. So expect to see the White House use the “obstinacy” of Republicans, and the “need to govern”, as justification for a forthcoming decision by the President to proceed unilaterally with one or more appointments.
Contrast this positioning with then Senator Obama’s reaction to the recess appointment of John Bolton to the UN by President Bush in 2005:
“To some degree, he’s damaged goods,” said Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “I think that means we’ll have less credibility and, ironically, be less equipped to reform the United Nations in the way that it needs to be reformed.”
It appears that Obama did not invent this “damaged goods” meme, which was echoed by numerous liberal politicians and media outlets at the time. But he certainly had no problem deploying it to advance his argument that bypassing Senate confirmation reduced the credibility of the appointment.
The article continues at Verum Serum.
