| So, er, why is Baucus joining the Republican chorus criticizing President Obama's recess appointment of Medicare chief, Donald Berwick?
Not because he opposes the appointment. According to the report, Baucus "did not object" to the appointee, and said he "looked forward to working with the Medicare agency" under Berwick's tenure.
Nope. It's "principle":
"I'm troubled that, rather than going through the standard nomination process, Dr. Berwick was recess-appointed,'' Mr. Baucus said.
"Senate confirmation of presidential appointees is an essential process prescribed by the Constitution that serves as a check on executive power and protects Montanans and all Americans by ensuring that crucial questions are asked of the nominee, and answered,'' Mr. Baucus said.
The Finance Committee was still vetting Mr. Berwick and had not scheduled a confirmation hearing.
Which completely ignores that Republicans have been using secret holds and other byzantine and mysterious Senate procedural rules to block or delay confirmation of many of Obama's nominations. And completely ignores, as Jamelle Bouie notes, that the Senate confirmation system is essentially broken:
...there was a time when confirmations were fairly quick. In a 2004 paper, Marymount University political scientist Margaret Tseng found that the average time between nomination and confirmation has grown steadily since the 1960s. When President Kennedypresented a nominee, he could expect confirmation within a few months at most. By contrast, President Clinton waited upward of nine months before many of his nominees entered service.
While some of this is political -- high polarization has made the confirmation process a battleground for political advantage -- it's also true that the 100-member Senate isn't particularly equipped to deal with the sheer size of the executive branch. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Senate could expect to confirm a few dozen nominees. Now the Senate must confirm thousands of nominees, the majority of whom don't benefit from the full attention of the Senate. Republican obstructionism has compounded the problem, but even if GOP senators were more deferential to the president's choices, you would still have to contend with too little time and too many nominees.
So...why the fuss from Baucus? Does his cozy relationship with Chuck Grassley cause Baucus to contort in paroxysms of triangulation whenever the Iowa Republican winks? Or is Baucus' aversion to those pesky single-payer advocates who interrupt his committee hearings so great that any hint of "expressed admiration" for a government-run health care system cause Montana's senior Senator to lash out irrationally?
Or is Baucus really principled?
Ha-ha, joking aside, whatever Baucus' motivation, his joining Republicans in criticizing Obama is an ill-considered and untimely bit of rhetorical triangulation, to say the least. |
