sick or mean?

Posted on Thursday 5 April 2007


 President Bush named Republican fundraiser Sam Fox as U.S. ambassador to Belgium on Wednesday, using a maneuver that allowed him to bypass Congress, where Democrats had derailed Fox’s nomination.

The appointment, made while lawmakers were out of town on spring break, prompted angry rebukes from Democrats, who said Bush’s action may even be illegal.

Democrats had denounced Fox for his donation to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the 2004 presidential campaign. The group’s TV ads, which claimed that Sen. John Kerry exaggerated his military record in Vietnam, were viewed as a major factor in the Massachusetts Democrat’s election loss.

Recognizing Fox did not have the votes to obtain Senate confirmation in the Foreign Relations Committee, Bush withdrew the nomination last week. On Wednesday, with the Senate on a one-week break, the president used his power to make recess appointments to put Fox in the job without Senate confirmation.
If ever there were a sensless exercise of power just to show he has it, this is it. When he made a recess appointment of John Bolton to the U.N., Bush claimed it was because we really needed someone in the U.N. ASAP. That was, of course, bullshit, but at least he went to the trouble to make an excuse. There’s really no pressing problems with Belgium that require an emergency appointment.

This is just something to show that Congress can’t push him around. Exercising power just to show you have it is pretty sick, or pretty mean, or both. Whichever you call it, it is diagnostic of a particular kind of person – known in the psychiatric literature as "a bully."

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