Countdown: Broken Government
By Nicole Belle Thursday Nov 15, 2007 1:08pm(co-blogged with Heather)
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With the news that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is considering not letting the Senate out for holiday recess to prevent Bush from making recess appointments of egregious candidates like Dr. James Holsinger for Surgeon General, Keith continues his series of interviews with John Dean, author of Broken Government exploring the themes of his recent book.
Partial transcript below the fold:
Olbermann: Tomorrow the Senate goes on Holiday recess to celebrate Thanksgiving. The holiday officially established by Abraham Lincoln to give thanks for finding a land of bounty in which they found freedom from King George.
RollCall.com reporting that Senator Harry Reid is considering making some Senators stay behind in DC Thanksgiving time to prevent President Bush from ramming through what are called recess appointments bypassing the Senate, because they're out of town and installing his own choices for key positions without a single vote in the Senate. Congress is already busy digging up and dealing with the deeds of previous Bush appointees like State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard whose stunning Blackwater testimony we told you about yesterday and about whom more in a moment. Now Senator Reid has his eyes on potential appointees such as James Holsinger Mr. Bush's choice for Surgeon General under fire for anti-gay positions in his church work and still yet to answer written questions from the Senate. We learn now from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette that Mr. Holsinger resigned from a seminary board on Monday anticipating that Mr. Bush will circumvent the confirmation process with a recess appointment to the Surgeon General position over Thanksgiving.
Senator Reid deploying a token force of Senators in the Capital sort of a watch guard to block recess appointments from the President. How rare is this and what does it say about the status of our government?
Dean: Well it's very rare. It's clearly an exercise in process where the Democrats are at last trying to counter what the Republicans have been doing for years, is to use and abuse and manipulate the process. What he's doing is preventing the Senate from actually going out of session so that there can be no recess appointments when there was no session and... really has just enough to keep it legally within the bounds of a session. Uh, I think it's uh...I hope he does it. I hope he does it for Thanksgiving and I hope he does it for Christmas because not only the names you mentioned but there are a slew of radical judges that uh would also be affected, that he couldn't slide into the court.
What Congress must do and they've done it in a few instances is write laws that do not let them do this. Give them a very limited period in which they can stay in that acting post then they're out. They need to do this government wide because the Bush administration has broken all records to prior predecessors in doing this and using this ploy.
Olbermann: This is the ethics watchdog. What do you do about the ethics watchdog when he apparently has no ethics or no memory?
Dean: Well actually he has a very impressive resume but the problem with the resume is that he has zero government experience. And since Bush I Keith they've been trying to use, to appoint the least qualified person to these Inspector General posts as they can, and
they have succeeded and I think this is a classic case of that very kind of action and it's become sort of a theory of how to downgrade this post.
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STOP THIS WAR!!!
Marc @ 1:
Rather, the war makers!
Bye Bye Miss American Dream
Drove my Beamer to the levee and I pushed it right in.
Take the Hummers to the dumpsters.
Here's a thought - why not make recess appointments illegal???
Join the Rational Revolution ~ www.citizenboo.com
Marc @ 4:
Growth Industry. Melting down all the guzzlers for metal.
Wow, sacrificing a turkey dinner to preserve some shred of our nation's integrity... so brave of them to even consider. I hope they actually follow through.
CitizenBoo @ 5:
Why the hell they do this in Las Vegas? The universal symbol of excess, greed, corruption, and gluttony?
Grover Norquist must be proud. The admin appoints people diametrically opposed to the position they are appointed to, in order to destroy the agency, so the Repubs can continue their agenda to drown government in the bathtub.
Stupid Git @ 7:
Actually I'd like to live to see the day when Thanksgiving means something a little deeper then just stuffing ourselves to death with food, then collapsing into a blood sugar coma on the couch to watch football.
Otay @ 9:
They've already drowned government in a bathtub. The only question left is whats going to happen to 70 Million Americans headed to the poor house in the next ten years?
Reid better follow through with this!
King George needs Reid and others to put the brakes on this subversion of the process.
If impeachment could possibly enter Reid's thought process maybe the King could be stopped from drowning more important government agencies. Just a thought!
This website says it all "crooksandliars.com". Love the domain name. Good post, keep up the good work.
L.A. Confidential @ 10:
Nope, Nope, Nope. Deeper manings shoudl be felt during Christmas, Easter, Independence Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and hell...even Arbor Day. There are only three damn holidays where I dont have to worry about the "true meaning"...namely Halloween, Thxgiving, and New Years...
Leave 'em alone.
John Dean's always great on Keith and Randi Rhodes shows. His findlaw columns are top notch
Americans just sit back and watch as our country is going down. We lost our Justice System and now the Stock Market will go to it's lowest in the history. Yes we have no Health Care or Military. We see this corrupt Government continue to lie cheat and steal but do nothing. Even some once honest Law Makers like Dianne Feinstein have caved in and joint the Crime Team. Yes it's all about stealing taxpayers money. Paulson invested in the sub prime and now he's taking taxpayers money to save his investment but as for the rest of the millions of Americans who got robbed nothing for them. We have Law Makers who are perverts, child molesters and hire prostitutes. We have Judges that commit more crimes then the criminals. We have the GOP selecting cases based on those who haven't committed crimes to those who are not Republican. We watch our States suffer while money goes to Saudis and Iraq. We have seen Billions of dollars given away to friends of the GOP/Bush Family members and out right crooks in the GOP that was to go to the victims of Katrina.
As America goes deeper in debt, weak Military, poor Health conditions and a totally corrupt Government it is weak enough for any other country to step in. This time it will be the new way not the old way of taking over a country. As the Saudis and China have both given Trillions to the US, Americans better hope they don't call in those loans.
Broke gubmint, or Baroque?
Jay @ 14:
A record number of those in the top 5% ranks of corporate America are cashing out and leaving the country for offshore digs anyway hows any of this stuff matter?
The average American voter
http://thecia.com.au/reviews/s/images/simpsons-0.jpg
The Fred Thompson wants to be the answer to.
keith, as usual, nails it. Who better than John Dean to bring the Constitutional truth to bear on the issue.
Considering these group of Democrats we have now I'll say that they'll think about not recessing, talk tough about it for a few days and when the time comes, they'll go home anyways, content in the fact that by thinking about it, they sent Bush a "message".
I never would have thought that John Dean, former NIXON counsel, would be a rational voice of reason! He's always great on the KO show.
No matter the reason, not letting the senate out for a holiday recess is a damned great idea. Good on yer, Harry Reid, who kicked your ass and got your brain engaged? Before it craps out again, let's see if you can do something else intelligent.
Like, uh, STOP THE FU*KING WAR!
Marc @ 1:
Stop this mockery of government called the Bush presidency. Impeach now!
Clinton made 140 recess appointments over two terms.
Ronald Reagan made 243 recess appointments during his two terms in office
In his first six years in office, Bush has made 167 recess appointments.
George H. W. Bush made 77 during his single term......]
And on, and on, and on...
This aint exactly a new dilemma in American executive politics and privledge...
Dr. Acula @ 22:
I know. I'm surprised Keith O' didn't ask him . . . ."tell us about how you felt when you pled guilty to obstruction of justice during your Watergate trial? You still in the hush money business?"
SPEAKING OF NADS...
"Senate blocks Iraq war money." Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said this week that if Congress cannot pass legislation that ties war money to troop withdrawals, they would not send President Bush a bill this year.
"Frustrated by Republican roadblocks, Democrats now plan to sit on President Bush's $196 billion request for war spending until next year — pushing the Pentagon toward an accounting nightmare and deepening their conflict with the White House on the war."
We'll see how long this lasts.
L.A. Confidential @ 26:
knock dean if you want, but he brought the sumbitch down.
>As America goes deeper in debt, weak Military, poor Health conditions and a totally corrupt Government it is weak enough for any other country to step in.
Other counties dont have to. Just like an old rusty factory, the Corporations will step in, break it up and sell the pieces.
... and its not a "War" --- its an Illegal Occupation. Always was, always will be.
Hopefully Bush will get caught receiving head in the oval office, then we can get all angry and impeach him. You guys have it all wrong. You have to commit NON-crimes to get impeached, not real crimes.
CitizenBoo @ 5:
Yeah. I would say that the recess appointment can be abolished. In the age of air travel, if there is a real emergency the Senate can be gathered on a few hours' notice to hold an upperdown vote on an appointment. This relic of the age of horseback or riverboat travel has no real purpose in the era of supersonic flight except as a backdoor for mischief.
CoIntelPRo @ 28:
The crimes paid off apparently since Dean lives in Beverly Hills.
ShouldBeWorking @ 30:
Basically, you have to offend the Victorian matrons and the religious clerics to get impeached.
Otay @ 33:
Quick, someone photoshop Bush performing an abortion and send it to the Archdiocese in D.C!
The Boomer's aren't doing much good either it's still all about, "WE and ME, are going to be richer, have more stuff, and be better educated then our parents!"
L.A. Confidential @ 10:
I DO NOT WATCH FOOTBALL!!!
If it ain't broke...break it! See, government doesn't work. Privatize the universe and everything will work...like Iraq, its totally privatized. Talk about stuck on stupid. Conservatives have a piece missing...the brain!
Nah - you could publish photos of Bush doing the nasty in the oval office and the Bush defending press would manage to turn it around to blame the Dems. Look how McCain turned bad behavior by a supporter and his completely inappropriate response into a fundraising letter, then Kathleen Seelye writes a column that makes it seem as tho it is Hillary's fault she was called a b***h - because she is one, heh, heh. All we can do is keep talking and hope that like with the Clinton impeachment, the public sees thru it.
What ever happened to the John Dean/G Gordon Liddy lawsuit? Did KO ever cover it. GGL would have made a good "worst" of the day or is KO afraid of GGL?
Stand guard against these recess appointments, In the words of His Fraudulency: "Don't get fooled again!"
OneFish @ 36:
Oh I do, I love watching movies where someone gets kicked in the balls.
ysbaddaden @ 17:
Both, actually. Kind of like France, just before the Revolution. "You say you want a revolution, well, you know......"
When it the congress going to get a back bone and impeach Bush?
Broken government ...... does that insinuate that it's fixable ? Or possibly destroyed is a better word.
Mark @ 43:
They aren't.
I get that fair use probably covers all the videos you use on your website, but why are you allowed to put your own watermark on the video?
the directors on the 3000 largest corporations had better start getting their stories together.
L.A. Confidential @ 26:
K.O. would never be so rude as to disparage a levelheaded, knowledgeable guest who has made very public mistakes in the past and survived it well. Your quote would sound more appropriate on FOX.
Actually, the pilgrims who held the first "thanksgiving" were not here finding freedom from King George, mainly because King George III was not born yet. Or King George II. Or King George I. They were looking for freedom from King James.
Let's stop the John Dean bashing. In 1972 he was a very young man to be in such a position of high power in an administration that thought it was riding a tidal wave of conservatism that began with Barry Goldwater. Such environments are extremely seductive. I think he has thought long and hard about what happened back then and I really appreciate his insightful analysis of cuurent politics, even if he is sometimes a little long-winded.
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