I don’t think so. There’s been no revolt among congressional Republicans over Bush’s Iraq strategy. Why would they fault his leadership over something as minor as presidential appointments?
Because that kind of attempted dictatorship would make their lives harder - by making voters angry at Republicans.
I think that will come to an end this fall, when it becomes painfully obvious the Surge of Liberty® has failed, and those Pubs that supported him realize that once again he has hung them out to dry.
Zamboni pretty well nailed this but let me modify your anecdote to make it more accurately represent the political reality here:
The person up for the VP position (a lone stock holder, with no personal relationship to anyone in the company) actively campaigned to keep your Exec VP from getting a promotion by calling board members to spread rumors and lies about her. Would she be doing her job if she recused herself from the committee to hire this person?
You do realize that Clinton made some 140 recess appointments, don’t you? And some of those were over strong congressional disapproval. The Bill Lann Lee example comes to mind.
Now, I’m not saying Clinton had “contempt” for the legislative branch, just that recess appointments on their own just might not be the best measure of this.
You do realize none of Clinton’s recess appointments were made during brief recesses of less than ten days, as Bush has done? That is what is going to piss off the Senate.
Oh, and the Senate wasn’t pissed off when Bill Lann Lee was appointed over very strong opposition?
Time will tell if the degree is comparable. I predict the lame duck in the White House is going to get his crutches kicked out.
Did Bill Clinton ever install an ambassador after asking for him to be removed from Senate consideration?
Clinton has given a recess appointment to at least one ambassador whose nomination was stalled for over two years in the Senate, which amounts to the same thing in my book.
I don’t think Bush should have done this (God, I’ve been saying that a lot in the last six years!), but the recess-appointment power is well-established. Theodore Roosevelt once made a recess appointment during a one-day recess of the Senate.
So it looks like we have a new ambassador to Belgium. Let’s hope he chokes on one of those waffles…
From the link:
Holy smokes, I just put 2 and 2 together and realized my family and I know this man (this is the first time I’d seen the city he’s from mentioned). My father engineered a 10,000+sf addition to their home some years ago, and I spent 6 weeks in Israel on a Jewish Federation tour back in 1978 with his son, Jeff. (OK, that cite is a little inflammatory, I admit. Here’s a more complimentary one.) For some reason I feel very vaguely creepy about this connection, though.
Also the Walker side of Walker-Bush originated in St. Louis and there is still a lot of family and money in the area. It is creepy how it is all connected, and how long it has all been connected.
Creepy indeed.
Clinton had two ambassadors to Belgium. Both were political appointments - neither were career State Department officials. The first one, Alan Blinken, was an executive in the financial services industry before his appointment, and in 2002 was the Democratic nominee for the Senate in Idaho, losing to Larry Craig.
He sits now on the board of a Belgian pharmaceutical company. In the 2004-2006 election cycles he donated $13,250 to various Democratic candidates.
Paul Cejas was the founder of CareFlorida Health Systems, which he sold in 1994 in a $90 million dollar deal. He presently runs PLC Investments and sits on the board of Mellon Financial. In the same time period, he and his wife gave a staggering $158,700 in political donations, the overwhelming majority of which went to Democratic candidates, committees, or PACs. A small percentage went to Florida Republicans.
So yes, it is all connected. I find the common thread is generally money and party.
My point was that there’s a huge aristocracy that’s been in place for generations, but isn’t really discussed much. This appointment is evidence of that aristocracy. By just covering the appointment and shenanigans surrounding it they’re missing half the story (the history). No, it’s not limited to one side or the other. There are plenty of old-money politicians (“trust-fund-babies”) on both sides of aisle. Just because it is generally accepted and happens on both sides, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be brought up and analyzed.
Sure he recognizes the legitmacy. He also knows how to bypass the appointment process (and how to use a pocket veto from time to time, as well) these are political moves that many Presidents have used.
But in the minds of the SDMB I’m not surprised people think it’s some great moral wrong to make a recess appointment.
The way things are done (at least to my knowledge) when a new ambassador is named, they have to be “received” by the country in question. It is possible, but rare, that the host country could refuse to receive a new ambassador. It’s very rare for this to be done between two countries that share friendly relations, but it isn’t outside the realm of possibility–it’d create some noise, but a country can refuse to accept any ambassador for any cause. Most countries don’t really care about how an ambassador is appointed, though.
There’s definitely an entrenched upper class. I think this appointment (like almost all ambassadorial appointments) is a sign that the spoils system is still alive and well. With all Federal agencies, there is a huge portion of them who are unelected professionals who will serve their entire careers in the Federal agency/department in question. Then there are the political appointments. To a degree, the political appointments are seen as a necessity to insure that there is democratic control over the Federal bureaucracy so that it does not establish itself (more than it already has) as an unelected, unaccountable power base. However, the political appointments are also of course, a holdover from the spoils system (the whole of the Federal bureaucracy used to serve at the pleasure of the President and come new administrations there would be massive house cleanings–with thousands of people getting jobs they weren’t remotely qualified to do.)
Ditto The New York Times. Back in 1999, they didn’t seem to have a problem when Hormel was bottled up by Republicans because he was gay and Clinton appointed him ambassador to Luxembourg in a recess appointment.
What a difference eight years makes
(Scroll down to the third story, “Finally, Mr. Fox gets the job.”)
Ah well, what’s good for the Democrats is not good for the Republicans.
And whats bad for the Republicans is good for the country. It all works.
That doesn’t make sense in the context of what ivylass said…