Last week, the monumentally unqualified and totally inept Katherine Archuleta finally did the right thing and resigned as director of the Office of Personnel Management. She did this only after it was revealed that very personal information, such as sexual history, mental health problems, and personal financial difficulties, on 10% of all adults in the United States had been handed over the communist regime in China.
This is how CNN reported the event:
When she won Senate confirmation to lead the Office of Personnel Management, the chief objections from lawmakers who voted against her focused on Obamacare.
That was October 2013, and the 62-35 vote reflected the political concerns at the time about how the agency, which serves as the federal government’s HR department, would implement parts of the health care law opposed by Republicans.
In nominating Archuleta, the President said: “Katherine brings to the Office of Personnel Management broad experience and a deep commitment to recruiting and retaining a world-class workforce for the American people.” The White House announcement listed a series of chief-of-staff and policy jobs in Denver and Washington before her job on the president’s campaign.
Less attention focused on the agency’s role in handling government security clearances and how it safeguards some of the most sensitive U.S. government databases.
Even less was paid to why Archuleta — whose most recent job was as a national political director for Obama for America, the President’s reelection campaign — was the person to help fix what was an agency already struggling to deal with technology problems and serious data breaches.
Aides to Republican lawmakers who voted for her confirmation now acknowledge they didn’t pay enough attention to the importance of technology in the agency Archuleta was taking over.
…
Critics now call her a political hack who shouldn’t have the job, even though she got the job with bipartisan support and her political past played little role in her Senate confirmation.
Or more succinctly:
Republicans acknowledge to @evanperez they didn’t properly vet Archuleta’s qualifications http://t.co/1PeEHUgmGU pic.twitter.com/qwuDlQIIqs
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 10, 2015
There were only 47 GOP senators and the time and only 9 of them voted for Archuleta. These were the GOP ‘yes’ votes and there are no surprises:
Chambliss (R-GA)
Chiesa (R-NJ)
Collins (R-ME)
Fischer (R-NE)
Flake (R-AZ)
Johanns (R-NE)
McCain (R-AZ)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Toomey (R-PA)
There is plenty of blame to go around on her nomination. Obama simply rewarded a party hack with a sweet job. The ‘National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, a grouping of 36 Hispanic organizations decided that ethnicity trumped competence and demanded the Senate confirm Archuleta.
Hector Sanchez, chair of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, said the bipartisan coalition of 36 major Latinos groups, sent a letter to senators saying they will closely watch the process for Archuleta’s nomination and may use it in a scorecard on members’ performances on Latino issues.
Sanchez said it is very difficult to understand why Archuleta would be subject to a possible filibuster that requires 60 votes to overcome, when every other nominee for the job has been confirmed by a voice vote.
He said there has never been a controversy around the position in its 35-year history.
“We endorsed Katherine Archuleta a long time ago in the coalition. It’s very critical for us and it’s important that Congress understand an attack on Archuleta is going to be very serious,” Sanchez said.
In retrospect, this statement is a triumph of identity politics over national security.
But back to the main point. The GOP was not to blame for Archuleta. She was the nominee of Obama and the Senate democrats ensured her confirmation. That CNN blamed the GOP is not really a story, the real story is that GOP commented on the allegation like it was a legitimate critique.
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