Every Republican in the Senate has written President Obama warning him not to appoint Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board:
"We are writing to urge you to not act in contravention of the bipartisan Senate vote against the nomination of Craig Becker to be a Member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) through a recess appointment," the senators said. "To do so would disregard the Senate's constitutional responsibility of advice and consent."
Aside from the fact that even Obama's nemesis Chief Justice John Roberts is urging him to man up and make some recess appointments, Republicans have already acknowledged that their strategy is universal opposition to anything the administration wants to do, making the threat meaningless. Republicans have already killed all the hostages, and now they're demanding a chopper and a billion dollars transferred to a Swiss bank account. What's the point?
While Republicans were uniformly mobilized against health-care reform, labor pulled out all the stops to help the administration get the votes it needed to pass the bill. Punishing your friends and rewarding your enemies isn't good politics. Obama should give Becker a recess appointment, and while he's at it, he should appoint Dawn Johnsen to head the Office of Legal Counsel and end the more than yearlong farce surrounding her appointment. If Republicans don't like it, they can start actually offering something in exchange rather than just making demands.
-- A. Serwer
