Well, with the invaluable aid of Democratic Senators Heidi Heitkamp and Joe Manchin, Scott Pruitt was confirmed by a "bipartisan vote" of 52-46 a little after one o'clock this afternoon.

The vote was preceded by a Democratic effort to extend debate in order to study the document deluge that resulted from the court ruling in Oklahoma. If Heitkamp and Manchin wanted to demonstrate any resistance to Pruitt's nomination, this was a quick and easy way to do that. "Despite how I feel about the nominee, I don't feel that the Senate can fulfill its obligation to advise and consent properly without examining these new documents." (God, I should be a speechwriter.) So we must assume that two Democratic senators think that having a climate denialist in charge of national environmental policy is a good deal. Of course, we can always leave it to the states, right?

And, if Pruitt's prolonged slow-dance with the extraction industry wasn't bad enough, remember that he was the AG in Oklahoma during the botched execution of Clayton Lockett. His performance was not, ah, extraordinary. From The Atlantic:

Both the attorney general, Scott Pruitt, and Governor Mary Fallin had elections coming up, and there were rumors that a Tea Party candidate might outflank Fallin on the right. Oakley believed they were worried about looking soft on crime. In mid-March, Pruitt had to make the embarrassing admission, as part of a brief to the state's court of criminal appeals, that Oklahoma didn't have all the necessary drugs, and Lockett's and Warner's executions had to be delayed.

Great guy. Stout fellow. Real good for the manufacturers of commercial poisons on many levels.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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