Democrats playing games with appointments

You might think that during wartime certain politicians would put aside petty agendas that center on blocking presidential appointees from taking office.

You would be wrong.

This is exactly what Senate Democratic leaders are doing to President George W. Bush's nominees. It is a disgraceful performance.

In his first year, President Bush has made more nominations to federal office than either of his two predecessors but finds more than a third of his administration's positions unfilled. The Senate has failed to do its part in the confirmation process.

At the top of the list are Otto Reich to be assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs and Eugene Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, to be the Labor Department's top lawyer.

Months after Reich's nomination by the president, Senate Democratic leaders refuse to schedule a hearing to move the appointment forward.

Reich worked in the Reagan State Department during the 1980s, where he was a fierce opponent of the Sandanista Communist government of Nicaragua, funneling aid to forces battling the Communists. You might think this is praiseworthy, but it isn't in the eyes of key Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, who denies Reich a hearing, much less a vote.

Scalia is hostage to Democratic revenge for his father's having voted to end the charade that was the Florida election recount in December, 2000.

Then there are the judges.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont is blocking dozens of qualified judicial nominees from having votes and, in many cases, even from having a hearing. This is happening even though vacancies on the federal bench are at record levels.

Leahy spent lots of time a few weeks back raking the Bush administration over the coals for its plan to invoke military tribunals to try some of America's foreign enemies. This necessarily means that he would prefer that federal courts do the trials.

Again, this is disgraceful -- and quite indefensible to boot.

Continued refusal by Senate Democrats to fulfill their constitutional duty to advise and consent in the confirmation process will leave the president with few options. He is thought to be considering what are called recess appointments, which is an extraordinary procedure whereby a president appoints a person to fill a position temporarily, or during congressional recess, bypassing the confirmation that this Senate refuses to supply.

It's a heck of a way to run a country during wartime.