The NY Times talks about all the vacancies in the Obama admin:
While career employees or holdovers fill many posts on a temporary basis, Mr. Obama does not have his own people enacting programs central to his mission. He is trying to fix the financial markets but does not have an assistant treasury secretary for financial markets. He is spending more money on transportation than anyone since Dwight D. Eisenhower but does not have his own inspector general watching how the dollars are used. He is fighting two wars but does not have an Army secretary.
I wonder why that is? Secretary of the Army seems kind of important. Have no fear, the Times will get to it 15 paragraphs later:
And Republican senators are holding up nominees like John McHugh for Army secretary to influence what happens to the detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Remember a year ago when something like that would have been called treason? At the very least, I’m sure it would have inspired a couple dozen “they’re just on the other side” posts.
Englischlehrer on vacation
it is so frustrating that the Repubs can just stall and get the dems to negotiate, excoriate them in public, then vote no and complain that obama and dems are in control and getting nothing done.
and that is bad reporting to not put the relevant info where it is needed. 15 paragraphs later?? that is like last week in LA a buddy ended up buying some random chick a 17 dollar mojito and then as she is finishing it says she has a boyfriend…oh, that would have been helpful info!
The Dangerman
Isn’t the NYT’s supposed to be the most liberal of rags?
I give up on the major dailies; I don’t know if it is intentional bias (i.e. some grand conspiracy) or self preservation (the angry Left writes angry letters, the angry Right shops for bullets).
Keith G
It’s still Obama’s fault. If he would have just followed Broder’s advice and tried to be bipartisan, he would have a full cabinet by now.
PeakVT
Another example of the anti-democratic nature of the modern Senate.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Between the hyper-use of the filibuster (I never remember the Republicans needing 60 votes to pass anything) and the hold-up on appointees someone might get the idea that Republicans are obstructionists. Luckily we have the liberal MSM to disabuse anyone of that notion.
Whatever happened to the “upordown” vote?
Alan
Are we allowed to call them traitors yet?
Martin
And if Obama had filled all the vacancies, they’d be shrieking ‘Big Goverment’ at the top of their lungs.
It’s all good.
Ugh
I guess having 60 Democratic votes in the Senate is some sort of Bizzaro World-esque event where it prevents you from doing simple things like confirm nominees. If the Republicans had 60 votes in the Senate the income tax rate for people making over $500K a year would be zero and we would have invaded Venezuela by now.
Wile E. Quixote
Just appoint these guys during the recess and tell Congress to go fuck themselves. Also get on the phone to Tom Coburn and say “Look Tom, you ignorant racist asswipe, you’re from a red state that gave me nothing in 2008 and won’t give me anything in 2012, so next time a bunch of tornadoes flatten some part of your worthless, pathetic ugly shithole of a state don’t come crying to the federal government for money.”
Maude
The Repubs have to do better at influence. One detainee is on his way home to Afghanistan today.
This holding up appointments is diaper territory.
handy
So this is completely anecdotal and, yeah you gotta consider the source, but I had a reunion this weekend with a Winger friend with 21 years of service under his belt doing what he described as liaison work in the UK. The subject of why Obama retained Gates as SoD, to which he replied he had no choice since there was nobody else with any real experience in charge. His story is that Obama has appointed a lot of inexperienced people to high level posts, many as he said with derision being women. I may have misheard him but he claimed the 3rd highest person in command is a woman in her late 30s. The point being that the Obama Administration knows F— all about running things.
This suggestion that Obama was “politicizing” the military struck me as an odd observation from the inside considering how much Bush completely ignored much of the military intelligencia during the run up to and in the aftermath of the Iraq war, and in fact leveraged generals and admirals who were willing to stick to the party line against critics from within the military or who were retired.
My gut was that this guy is looking at things through blinders but I had no factual data to challenge him on.
Violet
@Alan:
We’re allowed to, but we’d just be treated as far left crazy people who should be ignored. Meanwhile, far right wackos can say anything they want and be treated as reasonable people.
And to think, these people probably went to journalism school. What do they teach in those places anyway? How to bury ledes so far down they die?
smiley
OT but too funny:
crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/now-birthers-are-demanding-know-was
DougJ
It’s worse than that in terms of context. Later, it is revealed that Obama has a higher proportion of positions staffed than previous administrations had.
gwangung
@handy: Given this news item, perhaps that “30 year old” was the only person that didn’t need confirmation by the Senate…
Michael
The wingularity will be at its greatest density somewhere around the time that Inhofe, Coburn, Kyl Blunt, Flake, Shelby, DeMint and Chambliss all take up, in unison, the line that we must abandon Afghanistan because it is a nation-building mission that is squandering American lives and treasure.
At that point, you’ll know that the GOP message machine has finally met itself.
As we arrive at that point, expect to see little local phenomenae like this one as a foreshadowing of the great event to come.
Napoleon
@Wile E. Quixote:
Exactly
Meyer
The wingularity will be at its greatest density somewhere around the time that Inhofe, Coburn, Kyl Blunt, Flake, Shelby, DeMint and Chambliss all take up, in unison, the line that we must abandon Afghanistan because it is a nation-building mission that is squandering American lives and treasure.
IOW, the wingnuts will become so incredibly dense that not even light can escape their gravitational pull?
I think we can find examples of that today.
wvng
John, thanks for posting this. To anyone who knew the facts behind the situation, the article was just astonishingly poor. And, as DougJ mentioned above: “It’s worse than that in terms of context. Later, it is revealed that Obama has a higher proportion of positions staffed than previous administrations had.”
Ugh
The wingularity will be at its greatest density somewhere around the time that Inhofe, Coburn, Kyl Blunt, Flake, Shelby, DeMint and Chambliss all take up, in unison, the line that we must abandon Afghanistan because it is a nation-building mission that is squandering American lives and treasure.
This is pretty close:
Steele Today: “Don’t Cut Medicare!” Steele in 2006: “Cut Medicare!”
El Cid
Hardline Republican Legislators Stall Key Appointments Vital to National Security
Oh, I’m sorry, that would not be a bipartisan, Democrat-blaming headline.
Zifnab
How? I understand that there may be hold-ups on actual serious legislation, but are you telling me we have a sixty Senator majority that can’t agree to blockbust holds on freak’n cabinet positions? I mean, seriously, wtf? Under Bush they’d have been selling these seats to the highest bidder and just shuffling through the paperwork with 60 votes. Filibuster? Vote on it. 60. Filibuster? Vote on it. 60. What’s that? You want to cry about it? Don’t make us reach for the nuclear option.
Andy K
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Then you weren’t paying attention to what was going on when Bill Frist was running about shouting, “Nuclear option!”
kid bitzer
you see? this is exactly the kind of stunt that douthat was pulling in that op-ed:
point to a problem caused entirely by republican intransigence and nihilism.
and blame it on obama and the democrats, while ignoring or downplaying the republicans’ role in causing it.
freelancer
@Michael:
See also, “Fox News, the New Liberals”
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-august-19-2009/fox-news–the-new-liberals
dmsilev
@smiley: That is hilarious.
Strangely inevitable, yet hilarious.
-dms
Brian J
Remind me again of why Obama and his allies can’t go after the Republicans over this stuff? What’s the downside? Are they going to block his agenda any more than they already have? Is the media going to act as if he’s a failure because he hasn’t walked on water after nine months in office? I’m not saying he needs to act like a drunk asshole in a bar, only that if he senses there’s a decent chance of acting like he as a set of big(ger) cajones, he can get a lot of these spots filled and build momentum for passing legislation. If he fails, he fails, but it doesn’t look like he’s playing with fire here.
ppcli
@Wile E. Quixote:
“Just appoint these guys during the recess and tell Congress to go fuck themselves. ”
Fer Shoor. In fact, as I recall, recess appointments of unacceptable (and sometimes repeatedly rejected) nominees was standard operating procedure for Bush’s F*ck You administration. (Like the guy who bankrolled the swift-boaters who got appointed ambassador to something after a decisive rejection by the senate.) Didn’t the Democrats finally do something like basically stop holding recesses because that tactic had become the norm? (Forcing there to be at least one token Senator around all the time.)
Mnemosyne
@Zifnab:
It’s different than a filibuster — IIRC, any senator can put a hold on a nominee for any reason.
phillip anderson
what makes it even more awesome is the fact that McHugh, the man appointed to be Army secretary that is being held up by those republican senators, is, ya know, himself a republican.
kick ass.
Creamy Goodness
I’ve started reading the Huffington Post and I read the NYT less often now. I hope that HuffPo becomes the force for holding our government accountable that the NYT refuses to be.
Nico Pitney’s tough question at the presidential press conference a while back was a good start. I think HuffPo has a lot of potential with Froomkin in charge of their Washington bureau.
Demo Woman
@smiley: I hope John or Doug highlights this. Although it is mildly amusing, it also shows how deranged these folks are.
David Hunt
@ppcli:
“Fer Shoor. In fact, as I recall, recess appointments of unacceptable (and sometimes repeatedly rejected) nominees was standard operating procedure for Bush’s F*ck You administration. (Like the guy who bankrolled the swift-boaters who got appointed ambassador to something after a decisive rejection by the senate.)”
And let’s not forget my all-time favorite: A recess-appointment of John Bolton to be Ambassador to the U.N. I can’t think of a more ill-matched set of appointment and appointee…and I include the old joke I once read of making Kivorkian as Surgeon General in that. Bolton as U.N Ambassador is a set of words that shouldn’t have appeared outside of the Onion.
David Hunt
@phillip anderson:
Unpossible. Anyone who’s willing to work with B. Hussein Obama in any fashion whatsoever, by definition, is not a real Republican and must therefore, be purged from the
cultparty.Ash Can
@Zifnab: Somebody should inform these guys that the nuclear option already happened, during the first week of November of last year.