The Politico professes to not know how Republican leadership doesn’t yet know how it will handle Obama’s nominations over the next two years.
Duh! Let us help Politico with this one. It’s not a toughy.
How will the GOP handle this? Like they do all the time:
Exercise their patented ABC’s of “leadership:
A- Abdication
B- Befuddlement
C- Capitulation
The recent history seems clear enough. Republican leadership could have played hardball and held up Reid thoroughly on the matter of the CRomnibus, getting concessions on that, also with an eye on appointments. After all, there is no Constitutional requirement of a three-week Christmas vacation. With that in mind, and more, the title of the Politico article: Obama nominees in doubt seems rather overblown substantively. The doubt would seem more McConnell deciding whether to go with abject surrender or a meretricious approach aimed at placating unwashed conservatives. We will note if we are wrong when conservatives in the Senate convey that sincerity reigned. But we doubt that will happen. These excerpts from the article will suggest why:
“There’s a real discussion going on in the Republican Party about: ‘How do we handle this?’” said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who is entering the presidential line of succession as Republicans’ most senior senator.
In some ways, Democrats’ last-minute push to approve dozens of Obama’s nominees (69 were confirmed in the last five days of the Senate’s session) is clarifying for Republicans. Democrats completely cleared the floor of judicial nominees, and many lower level and obscure positions in the executive branch were filled in bipartisan fashion. Murthy, Saldana and Blinken’s hot-button appointments were pushed through over Republican objections, ending several bitterly contested disputes over nominations and clearing a politically-charged backlog.
Now, Republicans have two key nominees to consider as they test their new majority: Loretta Lynch to be attorney general and Ashton Carter to be Defense secretary. Barring unforeseen circumstances or gaffes in their confirmation hearings, both are expected to be eventually confirmed, which will help set the narrative of McConnell’s envisioned governing majority.
From there it’s unclear what nominations that Obama will prioritize and how Republicans will handle them. But GOP leaders are rejecting calls from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to block everyone non-essential to national security until Obama relents on his executive action to shield millions of immigrants from deportation.
Reading Politco’s concluding paragraphs, the seriousness of the article’s title seems more in doubt than McConnell’s resoluteness to stop the Obamanation. Consider:
Democrats did more than exploit their own rules change to confirm hundreds of nominees. They also seized on an agreement between Reid and McConnell that drastically lowered the amount of debate time for judges, which allowed the party to prioritize lifetime appointments to courts that are sure to eventually scrutinize legal actions against Obama’s regulatory agenda and the Affordable Care Act. During the lame duck, it would have been nearly impossible to confirm so many judges without this agreement.
That is Politico reporting not the wary suspicious skeptical impossible to please right-wing commentariat.
DLH and R Mall
But but but I thought the big bad Republicans blocked and obstructed at every move!?