I Smell Backbone, Do You Smell Backbone?

Harry Reid is seeing the President's procedural trick and raising him one.

The Senate will be coming in for pro-forma sessions during the Thanksgiving holiday to prevent recess appointments.

My hope is that this will prompt the President to see that it is our mutual interests for the nominations process to get back on track.

While an election year looms, significant progress can still be made on nominations.

I am committed to making that progress if the President will meet me half way.

But that progress can’t be made if the President seeks controversial recess appointments and fails to make Democratic appointments to important commissions.

Why Reid didn't do this sooner is depressing, a bit, but clearly he's lost his patience. Recess appointments are a relic of when there weren't airplanes and Congress couldn't get back to session in an emergency. It'd be a small fix but I would absolutely support a Constitutional amendment banning them, period.