No, Mitch. What's 'unprecedented' is Republicans' 'unprecedented' effort to block Obama's nominees

[flpoljunkie]

Read somewhere this morning President Obama has recess appointed 28 nominees compared to George W. Bush's 170 and Bill Clinton's 140.

01-04-2012 10:43 AM

McConnell: Obama Appointment 'Unprecedented'
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell decried President Obama’s decision to recess appoint consumer watchdog Richard Cordray.

“President Obama, in an unprecedented move, has arrogantly circumvented the American people,” said McConnell in a statement.

McConnell further added that the appointment puts Obama in “uncertain legal territory.”

[Old and In the Way]

2. American history started in January, 08

Whatever happened in the 8 years prior doesn't count. Seriously, I have yet to hear any Republican candidate in this election cycle mention the Bush/Cheney years...it's like they didn't exist.

[Kdillard]

3. They don't want people to remember because if they did

they would not be elected. Bush's name is mud.

[Renew Deal]

4. Why just Cordray?

[flpoljunkie]

10. I understand there will be more.

[rocktivity]

5. Recess appointments made by Obama's precedcessor

who was least three dozen times more arrogrant.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Recess_appointments_made_by_President_George_W._Bush


rocktivity

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. No other president has ever done such a thing!

Oh, wait...

"President George W. Bush appointed two judges during Senate recesses, William Pryor and Charles Pickering, to U.S. courts of appeals after their nominations were filibustered by Senate Democrats. Judge Pickering, whom Bush appointed to the Fifth Circuit, withdrew his name from consideration for renomination and retired when his recess appointment expired. Judge Pryor was subsequently confirmed by the Senate for a lifetime appointment to the Eleventh Circuit. In two terms, Bush made 171 recess appointments.

On August 1, 2005, Bush made a recess appointment of John Bolton, to serve as U.S. representative to the United Nations. Bolton had also been the subject of a Senate filibuster. The filibuster concerned documents that the White House refused to release, which Democrats suggested may contain proof of Bolton's abusive treatment and coercion of staff members or of his improper use of National Security Agency communications intercepts regarding U.S. citizens. Having failed to win

On April 4, 2007, during the Easter recess of Congress, Bush announced three recess appointments. The first was Sam Fox to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium. Fox's appointment had been thwarted in Congress because he had donated $50,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the 2004 presidential campaign, a group whose advertisements many Democrats blamed for John Kerry's loss. The second appointment announced that day was Susan Dudley to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) at the Office of Management and Budget.

The third recess appointment on April 4 was Andrew G. Biggs to serve as Deputy Commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Biggs was investigated by Senate Democrats in 2005, while serving as Assistant Commissioner for the Social Security Administration, concerning whether he violated a federal ban on congressional lobbying by federal employees when he edited the prepared testimony for a lobbyist appearing before a Democratic Policy Committee Social Security hearing as alleged by John Stanton in Congress Daily."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recess_appointment

[onenote]

7. You are right about the blocking of nominees, but the cited recess appointment totals are misleading

Bush II made 171 recess appointments, but that was over an 8 year period. Moreover, of those, 99 were full time positions. The rest were appointments to part time positions, such as membership on various government advisory committee and boards.

More to the point, when it comes to full time jobs (the ones that really matter), President Obama actually has been more aggressive in his use of his recess appointment power than Bush II. Through the first two years of his presidency, President Obama made 28 full time recess appointments; Bush II only made 20 during the first two years of his presidency. While Bush II made another 14 in his third year in office (giving him 34 through three years), the repubs, employing a tactic comparable to the one that the Democrats used to block bush from making any recess appointments in his last two years in office, have kept Obama stuck at 28 through three years. And now President Obama has decided to aggressively go against that tactic and appoint Corday. This is a good thing.

I'm glad the President has made this move, although it does mean that an approach that the Democrats successfully used against bush will not be part of our arsenal in future years.

[Scurrilous]

8. K & R

[Ikonoklast]

9. Cordray is a good man, good choice. Fuck that chinless wonder McConnell.

Anything that annoys Mitch is fine with me.