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Damon Root

The hypocritical liberal defense of Obama’s recess appointments

In response to Bush’s use of the recess appointment power to bypass the Senate confirmation process, Senate Democrats in late 2007 adopted a new defensive posture. A member would gavel the Senate into pro forma session every few days in order to prevent it from going into recess over the holidays, thereby denying the president the legal ability to make any more recess appointments. It did the trick. As Times reporter Charlie Savage put it, “Senate Democrats repeated the move during breaks for the rest of Mr. Bush’s presidency, and Mr. Bush did not try to make any further recess appointments.”

Like George W. Bush before him, President Barack Obama has also invoked the recess appointment power under dubious circumstances. But unlike Bush, Obama decided to bulldoze right over the inconvenient fact that the Senate was conducting a pro forma session at the time. …

So how did the editorial board of The New York Times respond to this decision? …

In an unsigned editorial titled “A Court Upholds Republican Chicanery,” the Times blasted the D.C. Circuit for placing limits on Obama’s authority. “With no sign that Republicans are willing to let up on their machinations, Mr. Obama was entirely justified in using his executive power to keep federal agencies operating,” the editorial declared.

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In an unsigned editorial titled “A Court Upholds Republican Chicanery,” the Times blasted the D.C. Circuit for placing limits on Obama’s authority

Maybe the Chinese posted that as a joke.

Flange on January 31, 2013 at 10:59 AM

Mr. Obama was entirely justified in using his executive power to keep federal agencies operating,

Federal agencies operate in spite of not having a political appointee in charge.

Vera71 on January 31, 2013 at 11:01 AM

“It does not matter what the guy does, as long as it’s your guy doing it.”

The number one (and only) rule in politics.

Gatsu on January 31, 2013 at 11:04 AM

I don’t expect the NYT to be any more intellectually honest or consistent than a moonbat blog. They are slowly but surely destroying whatever credibility they once had, and are still operating as if challenging them requires a printing press and a research library.

RadClown on January 31, 2013 at 11:17 AM

Uh hoh please.
You can look at every single thing the lefties, the media and Democrats cried about when a Republican was doing it and they shut the hell up the instant Obama was doing the same thing or worse.
The war in Afghanistan, drone strikes, surveilling Americans,ignoring the courts,not answering questions, executive orders, vacations and bluh blah blah.

If Obama does it they will always defend it and act as if the past does nor exist.

NeoKong on January 31, 2013 at 11:20 AM

Liberals are never hypocrites. They believe in a class system. Each caste has it’s own rules and they get to be in the caste that determines all the rules. A double standard is an explicit part of their ideology.

gwelf on January 31, 2013 at 11:22 AM

VJ’s pool boy invites these fights over appointments by intentionally finding the most controversial appointees. He knows there will be Republican and even some Democrat backlash. It’s all designed to paint the opposition as obstructionists.

antipc on January 31, 2013 at 11:22 AM

In an unsigned editorial

Where I am from, we call that a COWARD.

hillsoftx on January 31, 2013 at 11:24 AM

If it helps The party the left does it.

The root of our problem is that most people in America do not see all the democrat hypocrisy. There are not dozens of segments talking about how the democrats came up with that pro forms session (including Obama) nor how they bypassed the scheme they came up with a few years earlier.

The media is corrupt and we must destroy it or be destroyed.

Organize and fight.

GardenGnome on January 31, 2013 at 11:43 AM

I’m pretty sure if Bush had decided to bulldoze his way over the machinations of the Senate at that time, the NYT would have lauded him for keeping the government working.

ButterflyDragon on January 31, 2013 at 12:50 PM

What am I always saying about the “smell test” for federal power? Never grant them a power you wouldn’t want your worst enemy to have.

If you wouldn’t want Chimpy McBushitlerburton to make appointments during these doofy pro forma sessions, don’t establish the precedent! Cause eventually, there’s gonna be a guy like that in office sooner or later, and even if there’s not, the point of restraint of power is to insure against that.

Unwilling to heed that kind of advice, the Dems cook up pro forma sessions. Then, when Congress goes into a Republican-led pro forma session, they lose their minds.

Someone should try to push through a federal ban on abortion using a combination of reconciliation and demon-pass, just to see what happens.

The Schaef on January 31, 2013 at 1:10 PM

Billionaire Democratic contributor George Soros. He said the George W. Bush White House displayed the “supremacist ideology of Nazi Germany” and that Bush’s administration used rhetoric that echoed his childhood in occupied Hungary. “When I hear Bush say, ‘You’re either with us or against us,’” Soros said, “it reminds me of the Germans.” Soros later said: “The Bush administration and the Nazi and communist regimes all engaged in the politics of fear. … Indeed, the Bush administration has been able to improve on the techniques used by the Nazi and communist propaganda machines.”

Former Vice President Al Gore. He said: “(George W. Bush’s) executive branch has made it a practice to try and control and intimidate news organizations, from PBS to CBS to Newsweek. … And every day, they unleash squadrons of digital brown shirts to harass and hector any journalist who is critical of the President.”

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee. He said: “What we are dealing with right now in this country is whether we are having a kind of bloodless, silent coup or not. … (President Bush) is trying to bring to himself all the power to become an emperor — to create Empire America.” An Iraq War opponent, McDermott said, “The President of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war.”

Del Dolemonte on January 31, 2013 at 1:39 PM

Pots, kettles, black.

yhxqqsn on January 31, 2013 at 1:52 PM

Billionaire Democratic contributor George Soros. He said the George W. Bush White House displayed the “supremacist ideology of Nazi Germany” and that Bush’s administration used rhetoric that echoed his childhood in occupied Hungary. “When I hear Bush say, ‘You’re either with us or against us,’” Soros said, “it reminds me of the Germans.”

Well, if anyone should know something about Nazis, it would be Soros.

cthulhu on January 31, 2013 at 2:15 PM