Ryan Grim has a good story on the virtual shutdown of the federal regulatory apparatus. Bush keeps nominating anti-regulation, anti-government ideologues, and the Senate keeps rejecting them. As a result, a vast array of the nation's regulatory boards are now too empty to meet. That means no Consumer Product Safety Commission, no Federal Elections Commission, a one-member Council of Economic Advisers, and a National Labor Relations Board with so few members that they won't make controversial rulings becausedoing so would prove illegal. On the one hand, nuts. With a contested election going on, it would be good to have a working FEC. With China selling delightful, lead-coated toys, it would be good to have a functioning CPSC. With the economy melting down, it would be nice to chat with the Council of Economic Advisers. But not if those agencies are to be staffed with hacks and anti-government ideologues. And that's what's created the gridlock: Bush insists on using government as an employment agency for people who want to destroy government. That worked fine when dealing with a Republican Senate, but the White House now has to handle Harry Reid, and it turns out that they'd prefer to leave these positions unfilled than compromise with another branch of government. So I think Barbara Boxer basically gets this right when she says, "it’s better to have fewer people on the commissions if the people who are nominated want to destroy the mission of their particular job. From my perspective, I’d rather have nobody.”