Obama has folks whining about how hard it is to get appointees vetted and through the grueling process of having 60 fawning Senators rubber-stamp them.
Of more than 500 senior policymaking positions requiring Senate confirmation, just 43 percent have been filled — a reflection of a White House that grew more cautious after several nominations blew up last spring, a Senate that is intensively investigating nominees and a legislative agenda that has consumed both.
While career employees fill many posts on an acting 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.
…
Mrs. Clinton expressed the exasperation of many in the administration last month when she was asked by A.I.D. employees why they did not have a chief. “The clearance and vetting process is a nightmare,” she told them. “And it takes far longer than any of us would want to see. It is frustrating beyond words.”
He doesn’t care about these positions – he just appoints czars left and right, bypassing Congress. Can you imagine the screaming coming out the Senate (not to mention from the NY Times et al) if Bush had said, “Screw you Harry Reid – I’m appointing Steven Bradbury as Atty Genl Czar and he will carry out the duties of the vacant AG assistant counsel’s position.”
Moe Lane
Steve Maley
Dan McLaughlin
Neil Stevens
Daniel Horowitz
Community organizers are good at riling folks up,
janis (Diary) Sunday, August 23rd at 10:38PM EST (link)they’re just no good at actually being leaders as we think of leaders. Obama has no real clue how the government is run and why all those extra jobs should be filled with qualified people. Hey, he wasn’t qualified for HIS job, why should he care if anyone else is either?
And Obama’s White House is “cautious” now? Why, yes. That’s exactly the word I’d use for them–providing I had lost the ability to remember words like “arrogant”, “ignorant”, “careless” and maybe a hundred others before I came up with “cautious.” Then again, I’m not fawning over this guy and the NYT is. Very incautious of them, I must say.
It's that darn Republican majority in the Senate
mbecker908 (Diary) Sunday, August 23rd at 10:52PM EST (link)holding things up. Gosh, if he hadn’t caved into right wingers like Lindsey Graham and nominated a right leaning judge for the SCOTUS vacancy we’d only have eight Justices.
Actually, it is smart governance and smart politics
Achance (Diary) Monday, August 24th at 4:31AM EST (link)to use the “czars,” rather than appointees subject to confirmation, and Republican should stop bitching about it; we’re going to need this tool if we ever get back in power.
You basically need a total numbnuts to get Senate confirmation – or legislative confirmation at the state level – so why would you want to surround yourself with numbnuts? Run out some numbnuts, let the Senators be Senatorial, and if the numbnuts gets confirmed, don’t give him any power. Keep the power in the hands of the person who runs with scissors and who works for you rather than the Senate. OK, ain’t exactly what the Founders contemplated, but what about the current government is?
In Vino Veritas
Sure it's smart for the President to do
bk (Diary) Monday, August 24th at 7:14AM EST (link)But if a Republican President did that to a Democratic Senate they would go absolutely ape-you-know-what, They’d have Robert Byrd wheeled in holding up that crumpled Constitution from his pocket about how it’s the most blatant violation of that sacred document that he’s ever seen in his 173 years in the Senate. They’d do whatever they could to shut off all funds to the Administrative branch and everything else they could think of.
But to have a Democratic President whining about getting approvals from a 60/40 Democratic Senate is laughable. If he didn’t choose people who were tax cheats and liars he wouldn’t have any problems at all. Are there any honest people for the Democrats to choose from?
I know for a fact that the Administration is vetting
Achance (Diary) Monday, August 24th at 10:28AM EST (link)hires down into the merit system at GS-13. My wife was interviewed for a totally non-political federal job. When we went Outside, she called the hiring manager to give a contact number and was told that there wouldn’t be a hiring decision for some weeks because all hires had to be approved by DC.
It really isn’t news that Democrats do this, though it is a bit of a surprise for them to go as low in their organization as local/state office. In state and local governments they do it down to the very bottom, merit system laws notwithstanding. Of course, Republicans can’t even bring themselves to fire and replace the political appointments for fear of the hypocritical Democrats screaming about how partisan and mean-spirited they are.
‘Course, it does mean that when they see that R on her voter registration, she won’t be getting that job and she’ll still have nobody to supervise but me and the cats.
In Vino Veritas
maybe so, other than that 'unconstitutional' part
E Pluribus Unum (Diary) Monday, August 24th at 11:05AM EST (link)So then it does not matter if ‘czars’ are expedient. It is against the Constitution. And frankly, the constitutional requirement for ‘advice and consent of the Senate’ is an exceedingly good thing, regardless of the fact that the Democrats have for generations turned it into a political football. The alternative (which is unvetted, unaccountable ‘czars)) is worse.
The use of csars is ripe for abuse, and it is already evident that Obama is abusing his authority by their use.
So why is this a discussion at all? Republicans should have already been in the courts getting this whole ‘czar’ thing nipped in the bud.
Kill the Terrorists
Protect the Borders
Punch the Hippies h/t IMAO
You must not having the "living" Constitution
bk (Diary) Monday, August 24th at 11:14AM EST (link)It’s the one that replaces the second amendment with Roe v Wade.
I don't think it is unconstitutional for the Executive
Achance (Diary) Monday, August 24th at 11:52AM EST (link)to have “advisors” that look over cabinet members’ shoulders and who monitor the activities of the agencies. Odds are pretty good that your state’s governor has a group of staffers, usually titled Special Assistants, who are assigned to monitor each department and who, if they don’t have direct authority over the cabinet member, they certainly have the power to effectively recommend actions to the governor.
Comrade Obama has been way too blatant about essentially supplanting the cabinet officers with his czars, but the idea of WH staff having some power over the departments certainly isn’t either new or unique to this administration. I just think that the “advice and consent” part has become so draconian, that certainly Republicans should thumb their nose at it because of Democrat obstructionism. BHO doesn’t really have an excuse; he owns both bodies and Republicans are so few and so in to comity that they’ll give him his appointments with hardly a discourageing word.
In Vino Veritas
Normally Presidents have just advisers
Richard Mullins (Diary) Monday, August 24th at 12:02PM EST (link)but Godfather Obama(I would have agreed on Comrade Obama but even Commies have respect for their office) wants to make the unelected czars(really wiseguys for Boss) the standard for how to conduct business.
Richard Phillip Mullins BlogThe Squash Satire SiteNews on Happy Jet Airlines
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Joe Biden is like a Decrepit Park owner with a Meth lab that happens to not only be a dealer but a user.
Let’s Bankrupt the Democratic paty. Make spend all the money to defend thier candidates.
But what the public doesn't usually see
Achance (Diary) Monday, August 24th at 12:13PM EST (link)is how much power those “advisors” have over cabinet members and over governmental operations generally. Frankly, most political appointees don’t have a clue what they’re looking at when some staffer sticks a stack of paper in front of them and says, “sign this.”
In Vino Veritas
Yep, "just sign and go" is how thing work
Richard Mullins (Diary) Monday, August 24th at 12:53PM EST (link)Of course, that “sign and go” attitude has gone all the way to the top. We the lesser people, have to read thing before we sign them, they don’t. To be certified by the government for thing like starting airlines(I’m finding out day by day everything they want), you have to have a lot for them. Government wants everything right the first time from we the lesser people, but making major mistakes for them is Ok.
Richard Phillip Mullins BlogThe Squash Satire SiteNews on Happy Jet Airlines
Rmullins Pics
Rpmullins Twitter
Joe Biden is like a Decrepit Park owner with a Meth lab that happens to not only be a dealer but a user.
Let’s Bankrupt the Democratic paty. Make spend all the money to defend thier candidates.
Breakdown by percentage
Karina (Diary) Monday, August 24th at 5:29AM EST (link)It’s interesting to look at the breakdown by percentage of the filled positions and those awaiting confirmation. You can really see where the Administration is focusing their efforts. Sorry Justice, Treasury, and Commerce. You’re not all that needed now that we have czars. Otherwise you would be answerable to the American people and we can’t have that. We need to be able to do whatever we want to without interference from the Constitution or those laws rightwingers always talk about.
State-65%
Defense-62%
Justice-41%
Treasury-42%
Transportation-61%
Commerce-43%
Energy-68%
DHS-75%
HHS-75%
Labor-68%
Interior-88%
Education-59%
Agriculture-75%
VA-53%
HUD-60%
Here’s the graph from the NYT piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/08/24/us/politics/24confirm.graphic.html
He doesn't have time to fill these seats as they take....
JadedByPolitics (Diary) Monday, August 24th at 10:39AM EST (link)confirmation he is quite busy superseding the Constitution to put in place Czar’s who don’t have to answer to the Congress!
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let me kowalski and say the biggest load of nonesense....
JadedByPolitics (Diary) Monday, August 24th at 10:41AM EST (link)from the NY Times is when they wrote glowingly of the Nazi’s and kept Americans in the dark about the genocide that was occurring in Germany……NOTHING they have done since that time could ever reach those heights of hypocrisy and is the reason NO ONE should ever TRUST a word they say!
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