Bush names 3 to posts, angering Democrats

The final proof that Bush is an unconstitutional arsehole comes with this news:

President George W. Bush has used the congressional recess to fill the ambassadorship to Belgium and two domestic policy positions, provoking Democratic anger.

Though Bush and the new Democratic leadership in Congress pledged just three months ago that they would work cooperatively, they are now on a collision course in several areas, including the role of Congress in foreign policy and the administration's dismissal of eight federal prosecutors.

Under the Constitution, when Congress is in recess, the president may fill jobs without the usual Senate confirmation, and the appointees stay in place through the end of the current session of Congress. In this case, that is just before Bush leaves office in January 2009.

The new ambassador is Sam Fox, a major Republican donor who withdrew his name for the job in late March when it became clear that Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee were lining up against him.

The whole idea behind the constitution is to find consensus, and we all know Bush pulled Fox's name because he was fully aware that no such consensus existed.

So now he uses a Congressional recess to push through that which he knew Congress would not allow were it sitting.

Is this the same man who spoke of wanting to engage in non-partisan politics?

Any sleazebag who deals this fast and loose with the Constitution deserves the same treatment meted back to him.

Balkanisation puts it like this:

The excuse the President offers is the Recess Appointments Clause (RAC) of the Constitution, art. II, sec. 2, cl. 3, which provides that "The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session." The Senate is currently in the midst of an eleven-and-a-half-day adjournment; presumably Fox and the other three "recess appointees" will be appointed toward the very tail end of that Senate recess, just before the Senate returns. The President's view is (i) that this short Senate adjournment, in the middle of a "Session," is "the Recess" to which the RAC refers, and (ii) that the vacancies for Ambassador to Belgium and the other federal offices "happen" during this "recess," even though the offices became vacant long before the Senate adjourned.

There is no way that Bush's reading of the Constitution is even remotely like he would have us believe it is. He knows exactly what he has just done. He has stuck his middle finger up to the Constitution.

John Kerry puts it more politely that I feel at the moment:

"It's sad but not surprising that this White House would abuse the power of the presidency to reward a donor over the objections of the Senate," Kerry said Wednesday after the appointments were announced. "Unfortunately, when this White House can't win the game, they just change the rules, and America loses."

When he vetoes the funding bill for the Iraq war, the Dems should simply send it back to him unchanged. And every time he vetoes, they should repeat it and insist that this shallow shyster acknowledge the will of the democratically elected other chamber.

The function of the Senate is to act as a check on the executive. Bush has stopped playing ball. So should they. Non-partisan politics doesn't simply mean Bush gets to tell everyone else what he wants to do and that they obey.

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Tags: Bush, the Constitution, recess appointments, Sam Fox