Profiles in courage:
Richard (Dick) Shelby ®, Alabama, has really taken a stand of the highest moral order. He’s put a blanket hold on all 70 Obama appointees. Because they’re all Marxists, right? Uh, no. Because he wants some pork for his state:
- A $40 billion contract to build air-to-air refueling tankers. From CongressDaily: “Northrop/EADS(1)) team would build the planes in Mobile, Ala., but has threatened to pull out of the competition unless the Air Force makes changes to a draft request for proposals.” Federal Times offers more details on the tanker deal, and also confirms its connection to the hold.
- An improvised explosive device testing lab for the FBI. From CongressDaily: “[Shelby] is frustrated that the Obama administration won’t build” the center, which Shelby earmarked $45 million for in 2008. The center is due to be based “at the Army’s Redstone Arsenal.”
Is there any greater clarion call for the reform of political appointment process than this horseshit? Do we really believe that all these appointees to the sub-panel of the temporary committee on occasional projects needs the full focus of Senatorial advice and consent? Can we not just send the ambassadors, the Secretaries, and a few other, top-rung key personal through this idiotic and completely politicized process and be done with it? The current state of affairs has more or less guaranteed the President can’t fire anyone, ever, unless he/she wants to face the prospect of that (presumably key) office then sitting empty for a few years. This is not what the framers had in mind.
In a world with a fully fecked Democrat, they’d be screaming about this any time a microphone was within sight. As it stands, there’s been not one peep. We had an attempted plane bombing with relevant folks sitting on the sideline, for Christ’s sake. It’s simple. People understand it. Scream, scream, scream. Plus, as a bonus, you get to hoist the GOP on its own “strict constructionist” petard. “We demand a return to Constitutional government!” And then you quote Article II, Section 2, Clause 2. What about this do these fools not understand?
(1)McCain note added for context:
Let’s leave aside for the purposes of this discussion that the country should really be hoisting McCain from the nearest yardarm for needlessly costing the taxpayer billions of additional dollars through his cynical and purely political stunt to blow up the original Northrop/EADS tanker deal in the first place.
Lemkin 