Nothing like sending a message of toughness in one breath and then undercutting it in the other:
The administration scored a big victory last night, or at least it thinks it did. After President Obama finally threatened to make recess appointments if Senate Republicans didn’t let some of its nominees through the confirmation process, the Republicans allowed the Senate to confirm 29 of them last night. As if to thank them, the White House promptly shot itself in the foot.”On Tuesday,” the president said in a statement released last night, “I told Senator McConnell that if Republican senators did not release these holds, I would exercise my authority to fill critically-needed positions in the federal government temporarily through the use of recess appointments. This is a rare but not unprecedented step that many other presidents have taken.”
At this point in his presidency, George W. Bush had made 10 recess appointments. Over the course of his presidency, he would make almost 200. Bill Clinton made about 150. In describing recess appointments as “a rare but not unprecedented step,” Obama made it harder to actually make any, because he’s defined the procedure — which, unlike the hold, is a defined constitutional power of the president rather than a courtesy observed in the Senate — as an extraordinary last-resort. He also promised, later in the statement, that he wouldn’t make any appointments this recess.
And there’s the jobs bill mess: Harry Reid signaled support for a bipartisan GOP-friendly jobs bill, written by Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley (a conservative Democrat and a Republican) that almost everyone agreed would do nothing to create jobs — only to suddenly reverse himself when progressive Democrats pointed out that the bill would harm Democratic incumbents because it did nothing to create jobs.
Reid came up with a new bill that doesn’t sound much better. But the most damaging thing about all this, of course, is the “one hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing” problem. Nate Silver tackles that one:
It seems obvious that the Democratic leadership is confused and perhaps even a bit shellshocked after the Masspocalypse. Everyone agrees that, whatever becomes of the health care bill, most of the focus in 2010 ought to be on popular programs that focus more directly on righting the economy and reforming the financial sector. But — how exactly to do it? Is it more important to reach out to Republicans — or to let them take their lumps and cast some unpopular votes, at the risk of triggering some process stories about trying to “muscle” legislation through? Why is the public angry — because you haven’t accomplished very much, or because they don’t like the things that you’ve tried to accomplish? Is the public upset about the substance of the legislation you’ve tried to advance — or more by the process?
Nobody, certainly including the White House, seems to be in any agreement on these points, and yet having some opinion on them is essential to forging the way forward. And honestly, it may not be as important to come up with the right answer as simply to have an answer, so that you can have some sort of coherent messaging strategy going forward.
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