I keep hearing rumors that Bush has changed. All of a sudden, he’s open to “listening mode.” Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), a member of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, told the WaPo, “I think George W. Bush is a totally pragmatic politician. He’s going to do outreach. … He is a total realist. He knows that the solid, march-in-step Republicans, at least in the House, are gone. … Now his legacy depends on the national interest, not partisanship.”
I like Simpson and I know he’s not a bad guy, but I suspect he and I aren’t looking at the same president. His recent appointments/nominations make it clear that we’re still talking about the same old Bush, heading the same old White House, pulling the same old stunts.
A surprise late-afternoon announcement Friday that J. Timothy Griffin will become the new U. S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas drew the ire of U. S. Sen. Mark Pryor, whose spokesman said the maneuver amounts to “basically circumventing the normal process.”
“We think the people of the Eastern District of Arkansas deserve to know who their U. S. attorney is,” Michael Teague, Pryor’s spokesman, said shortly after learning that U. S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made the appointment, which takes effect Wednesday.
“The proper way to do this is in the Senate Judiciary Committee, [where ] several things are done to make sure that whoever fills this post is qualified.”
I realize that the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas is not exactly a high-profile gig, but Griffin’s selection, and the process itself, makes it abundantly clear that nothing about this presidency has changed — and the “hackocracy” lives.
As TPM’s David Kurtz noted over the weekend, this appointment is “textbook patronage politics.” After all, Griffin’s most notable public service has been serving as an aide to Karl Rove.
Normally, the White House requests names of potential replacements for U. S. attorneys and other positions from the state’s senators or congressmen, and then chooses a nominee from among those names. The nominee then must undergo a background check and Senate confirmation — which could be tough for Griffin in the new Democrat-controlled body. Griffin, a longtime behind-the-scenes Republican operative and political strategist, has worked for the Republican National Committee.
“If he was the nominee, potentially the senator would support him, but the way they’re doing it, it is basically circumventing the process,” Teague complained. “There are 100 U. S. attorneys around the country. The question is, what makes this one different ? The U. S. marshal [candidate, J. R. Howard, also for the Eastern District of Arkansas ] is going through the process. Why isn’t the U. S. attorney ?”
Teague noted that an interim appointment could keep Griffin at the helm of the top prosecutor’s post in the state’s Eastern District for the two years remaining in Bush’s term.
“This process circumvents a way to find out about his legal background,” Teague said. “We know about his political background, which is unbalanced. If he’s just interim for the next two years, every decision he makes during that time is going to be somewhat suspect.”
All of this sounds terribly familiar, doesn’t it? Ignore checks-and-balances, wait until Friday afternoon, blow off Congress, and appoint someone of dubious qualifications to an important government post, simply because you know he’s ideologically “pure.” It’s been going on for six years, and simply having his party trounced in national elections isn’t going to stop Bush from following the only game plan he knows.
Kurtz added, “I hope we’re not about to see a flood of recess appointments to get the White House through the rest of the President’s term with minimal advice and consent from the Democratic Senate.” I hope not, too, but I can’t think of any reason for optimism.