One question remains unanswered: Is it the organ

grinder writing WaPo editorials, or the monkey?



Senators should show some goodwill for the holidays by approving pending executive and judicial nominations, some of which have languished for months.



Among those who should be confirmed without controversy are the seven nominees for U.S. attorney, including the top federal prosecutor for Detroit, and the five nominees for U.S. marshal, including those for Massachusetts, Minnesota and Georgia."

Perhaps the greatest nominations travesty, however, is the one involving Dawn E. Johnsen's selection to head the Justice Department's influential Office of Legal Counsel. Ms. Johnsen was nominated early in President Obama's term and received a favorable vote from the Judiciary Committee in March. Ms. Johnsen has been blasted by some as too liberal on abortion issues, but abortion would not regularly factor into her DOJ job. Besides, even if it did, the president should be given deference in choosing executive-branch officials who share his views. Ms. Johnsen is highly qualified and should be confirmed. At the very least, senators should have the decency to give her an up-or-down vote.



They should extend the same courtesy to two other highly qualified Justice Department nominees who have been kept in limbo for five and six months, respectively: Christopher H. Schroeder, the president's pick to head the Office of Legal Policy, and Mary L. Smith, tapped to lead the tax division.

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Today the organ grinders at theeditorial page -- or was it maybe the monkey -- offered the Village lackeys an editorial, under the head " A Senate vote for courtesy ," which begins:One might be more tolerant of the organ grinders' (or monkeys') presumed "humorousness" in overlooking the Senate Republicans' unapologetic policy of obstructionism in favor of this quaint appeal to "courtesy" and "goodwill" rather than inviting the shitheads, with minimally decent regard for the country, if the editorial didn't immediately retreat behind the bogus "plague on both their houses," equating past Democratic opposition to galactically unqualified Republican appointments with what the Just Say No-ers are doing now: "Senators of both parties have for some years been stingy about approving court of appeals nominees picked by the other party."Of course, by carefully constructing this sentence so that it applies only to court of appeals nominations, the organ grinder (or monkey) evades the reality that while Democrats have indeed opposed (though often not forcefully enough) incompetent and ideologically extreme court of appeals nominations, as their job descriptions requires them to, and for which no apology should be required (these are lifetime appointments, after all), the Just Say No Republicans have been more than "stingy" about approving not only these but all other nominees, doing their damnedest to invent controversy over ever single Obama appointment. I mean, U.S. marshals -- really, now! As far as I'm concerned, by whitewashing the actual practices of the Just Say No-ers, themakes itself a co-conspirator. The Bush regime appointees therein referenced were so manifestly unqualified that they would have difficulty establishing their sanity, let alone their fitness as judges, to any impartial panel. During the confirmation hearings for now-Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, we got an up-close-and-personal look at a GOP judicial rejectee of an earlier era, the racist and generally mentally defective, who is currently disgracing the U.S. Senate with his membership.It was just the day before yesterday ("When will the men in the white coats with butterfly nets come for Tom Coburn -- and the rest of the right-wing crazies?") that I tore into the's Dana Milbank for using the same technique in his useful account of the performance by the Evil Doctor, Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, in urging prayer for the inability of ailing West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd to vote for the health care reform bill.Taking what it evidently deems the high road, but is in fact a carefully designed detour around the reality of the GOP's insistence of having right-wing thugs or incompetents or nothing, the editorial goes on to note that "there are no legitimate reasons to withhold confirmation for two highly qualified, seasoned professionals," Georgia federal trial judgeBeverly Baldwin Martn, who "earned a unanimous well-qualified rating from the American Bar Association when she was nominated for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit," and was voted on favorably by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 10. and New Jersey sitting federal judge (and former federal prosecutor) Joseph A. Greenaway Jr., nominated to the 3rd Circuit., who "also earned the ABA's highest rating and was given a thumbs up by the judiciary panel, but has been waiting for a floor vote for nearly three months."The editorial continues moves on to a case that we have screamed about repeatedly, but perhaps not often (or recently) enough, the nomination of the superbly qualified Dawn Johnsen to head the Dept. of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, which has been stalled because she appeared to have "only" some 57 votes lined up for confirmation:And there theorgan grinder (or monkey) rests, having done no more than scratch the surface of Obama administration appointments that have been obstructed by the Do-Nothing Thugs of the Senate GOP, seriously impairing the function of the federal government and leaving too much day-to-day business in the hands of Bush-regime holdovers who should have been given their walking papers 11 months ago.Of course Republican would know about impairing the function of the federal government. Governmental incompetence is about the only area in which they have demonstrated competence.

Labels: Obama's judicial nominees, obstructionist Republicans, Washington Post