The White House new media team is very helpful. They send me a steady supply of press releases in addition to inviting me on both regular media conference calls and those reserved specifically for bloggers. They’re very responsive to questions, too, but that is a privilege I do not abuse. Tonight, they sent me a press release about the president’s response to the Senate confirmation of 27 nominees.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_______________________________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 11, 2010
Statement by the President on Senate Confirmations
Today, the United States Senate confirmed 27 of my high-level nominees, many of whom had been awaiting a vote for months.
At the beginning of the week, a staggering 63 nominees had been stalled in the Senate because one or more senators placed a hold on their nomination. In most cases, these holds have had nothing to do with the nominee’s qualifications or even political views, and these nominees have already received broad, bipartisan support in the committee process.
Instead, many holds were motivated by a desire to leverage projects for a Senator’s state or simply to frustrate progress. It is precisely these kinds of tactics that enrage the American people.
And so on Tuesday, I told Senator McConnell that if Republican senators did not release these holds, I would exercise my authority to fill critically-needed positions in the federal government temporarily through the use of recess appointments. This is a rare but not unprecedented step that many other presidents have taken. Since that meeting, I am gratified that Republican senators have responded by releasing many of these holds and allowing 29 nominees to receive a vote in the Senate.
While this is a good first step, there are still dozens of nominees on hold who deserve a similar vote, and I will be looking for action from the Senate when it returns from recess. If they do not act, I reserve the right to use my recess appointment authority in the future.
Now, I am of two minds about this. On the one hand, the president put his foot down, made a threat, got the Republicans to respond to that threat, and now has 27 people ready to go to work in some very important positions. That’s good.
On the other hand, I am not impressed by Obama telling us that he reserves the right to make recess appointments in the future. Of course he reserves the right. It’s a right granted to him by the Constitution.
The President shall have power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
The recess appointment is a bit of an anachronism, in that it was written at a time when Congress only met for part of the year and people relied on horses to get around. The provision should probably be abolished. But it exists, and President Bush used it to put John Bolton in as ambassador to the United Nations after the Senate refused to confirm him. I don’t think Obama should recess appoint people who the Senate can’t get 50 votes to confirm. But he has every right to staff his administration if the Republicans are clogging the calendar as a matter of political strategy. And the reason the vice-president has the job of breaking ties in the Senate is because 50-50 splits are supposed to matter. If the Founding Fathers wanted a 60 vote threshold for appointments, they would have had the vice-president cast a vote in the case of a 59-41 split. Does that make sense? Of course not.
So, Obama should really get tougher. The Democrats are starting a coordinated effort to raise awareness of Republican obstruction. That’s great. But the language in this press release doesn’t strike me as tough. It strikes me as inadequate.
I don’t think this administration has it in them, sadly. Would love to be proven wrong. In my view, however, a combination of (a) Obama’s instincts toward conciliation, (b) the “capture” of certain members of the administration by establishment interests, whether cognitively or otherwise, and (c) belief in centrism by others of his administration are dooming this administration to underachievement and perhaps outright failure.
He has it in him, he’s just dead set on trying to change the tone. I honestly think he believes his own hype.
I need to read his books again. I want to know this man’s head.
The sad thing is, in a good world where politicians serve the people, he would be an ideal President. He treats us like adults and recognizes actual issues.
He needs to stop, though. It ain’t happening.
Excellent – and I agree with all of this.
yes, he has already changed the tone and that’s what we want. But right now tougher is required b/c we need to see results. I believe it’s called “tough love”.
He’s going to leave the NLRB dead? That would suck bigtime.
I’m less concerned with the language of his press releases than the language with which he directly confronts Republicans.
This press release sounds like something that a Canadian or U.N. politician might write, assuming that they FIRMLY BELIEVE that they are dealing with honest brokers that perhaps might have misunderstood them the first time.
Obama is really starting to piss me off with his overwhelming desire to be everyone’s friend and have no enemies. I just want to slap him upside the head and tell him that these people are scoundrels, Barack. They have no desire to be your friend and you must smash them. That is how you earn their respect because that neandrethal strategy is the only one they understand. Use their motto “Kick ass and take names later.”
Just do it. Then they’ll start to learn to respect your authorit’ah. Channel your inner Cartman, if you have one.
Carry around a big stick. Call it an Olive Branch if you want. When these assholes say no, just beat the shit out of them with it. These neocon thugs have serious manliness issues. The only way to earn their respect might be to kick their asses until they scream uncle. That’s the language they understand. Use it, Barack.
We have a saying down here: ‘Cowboy up, motherfucker’. Maybe you could pass that along. He needs to start treating the GOP like LBJ did the KKK.
Right on, Tex. Myself, I am the diplomatic type. Put up with alot of shit from the bully until I see it’s a fools errand. Once I realize that won’t work and I’m out of my element, I have to dig down deep. I’m left with no choice but to “Cowboy Up” like you say. I learned this in 7th grade. No one ever picked on ME again.
Meh. As a whole his administration strikes me as inadequate.
weak and ineffectual – no leadership. The best opportunity the Democrats have had for a long time is being squandered.
Yet more failure we can believe in.
Speaking of Tough – with a capital T – did any of you see Lawrence O’Donnell questioning that CIA guy this morning? Oh my gosh, we had a moment’s worth of actual journalism! He called him a liar on the LA Library Tower plot (and was right to do so) and challenged the premise that the country was safer under Bush since we were attacked under Bush in the first place. It was amazing.
So what happened?
Joe Scarborough cut him off, cut to a commercial, and came back with O’Donnell essentially muzzled.
O’Donnell had also been tough on that woman who had headed the WWF earlier. He was on fire today. I’m SO MAD at MSNBC for silencing him and giving us dumb (nice, but dumb) Joe instead.
To his credit, however, Joe is sticking up for O’Donnell’s point re 9/11.
And this CIA guy is fabricating up the wazoo. He’s claiming we got real intelligence out of KSM. Geez, we waterboarded the guy over 100 times. By now he probably has brain damage. No doubt he said all kinds of things, trying to figure out what they wanted to hear.
KSM didn’t give them “the picture on the jigsaw puzzle” box as he claimed. This is such BS.
I saw it and when they came back Joe did say that Lawrence was saving it for the Ed Show this afternoon.
… which I am taping. Woohoo! He looked pissed at Joe though at the end of their segment. I actually called MSNBC’s comment line and said wow, I almost saw actual journalism on your network – someone asking the tough questions, but then he was cut off. I said more of Lawrence and Dylan Ratigan, please! They’re the toughest interviewers I’ve seen yet! Lawrence was literally on a tear. A must see.