Revenge Against Rove

I don't necessarily want to see a bunch of Republicans chosen for positions in a Democratic Administration, but I think there's value to choosing a select amount. Particularly in the case of US Attorneys who have shown their willingness to buck partisanship and follow the evidence. This is a great move by the President.

Today, President Obama nominated four individuals to serve as U.S. attorneys — most notably Daniel Bogden in Nevada [...] Bogden has actually already served as a U.S. attorney, but he was ousted in the Bush administration’s political purge. Even Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) said that the case had been “completely mishandled” by then-attorney general Alberto Gonzales.

Apparently Harry Reid played a big role in this.

David Iglesias would be a nice choice for US Attorney in New Mexico, too.

Dems Get Cloture On Harold Koh

About damn time. There was literally no reason not to confirm him. Republicans are threatening to take all 30 hours of floor time to "debate" his confirmation. Obstructionist whiners.

Dawn Johnsen's next.

More Poaching

The President announced that Republican John McHugh (NY-23) will be nominated as Secretary of the Army. That's basically an administrative job as I understand it, not necessarily a policy job. So I'm fine with it.

And, this opens up another special election in a district where Democrats and Republicans are pretty closely divided. Obama won here 52-47. The Cook PVI is R+1. Down the road, I agree with Matt Yglesias that even if a Republican wins, he will have little clout to save his seat after 2010 redistricting, when New York is likely to lose a district based on population.

Obama has displayed a knack for increasing Democratic Congressional power and disarming opponents through these appointments.

Nobody's Home

One of the more pernicious parts of this economic crisis is that it's unspooling with Timothy Geithner practically working alone at the Treasury Department. Whether it's because of inertia or the vetting process being too stringent or practically everyone who's ever worked in finance being too compromised to take the job, almost all of the top deputy positions at Treasury haven't been filled, and two candidates just dropped out of consideration:

WASHINGTON -- Two candidates for top jobs at the Treasury have withdrawn their names from consideration, complicating efforts by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to staff his department at a time of economic crisis, according to people familiar with the matter.

Annette Nazareth, who was expected to be tapped as deputy Treasury secretary, and Caroline Atkinson, who was being considered to oversee international affairs, have both taken their names out of the running, these people said. Ms. Atkinson's name was withdrawn weeks ago and Ms. Nazareth withdrew several days ago.

The withdrawals come amid growing concern about the lack of staff at Treasury as it tries to grapple with an unrelenting financial crisis. Mr. Geithner is the only official to be nominated, let alone confirmed.

Paul Volcker, an economic adviser to President Barack Obama, recently called the lack of staff "shameful" and said Mr. Geithner "shouldn't be sitting there alone."

Let's add that Geithner is not exactly "sitting alone". There are holdovers from the reign of Emperor Paulson sitting in those seats. Feel better?

Meanwhile, the economic advisory team is being held up out of pure petty politics.

President Barack Obama’s economic advisers are increasingly concerned about the U.S. Senate’s delay in confirming the nominations of Austan Goolsbee and Cecilia Rouse to the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Without Senate confirmation, the two economists are barred from advising the president as the administration tackles the worst financial crisis in 70 years and tries to advance the spending plan Obama submitted to Congress last week.

“It’s frustrating,” said Christina Romer, who heads the three-member CEA. “These are hard economic times and we desperately want to get them through the Senate and definitely on the job.”

“They are both superb economists,” she said. “I can’t imagine what the holdup is.”

Goolsbee and Rouse appeared before the Senate Banking Committee on Jan. 15 and were slated for a full Senate confirmation on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, according to a senior administration official. Instead, they were approved by the panel Feb. 10.

They weren’t placed on the confirmation slate for the full chamber, leading some administration officials to conclude that Senate Republicans were retaliating against the Democrats because President George W. Bush’s nominations for the same slots languished in the Senate for months at the end of his second term.

It's not like Goolsbee, from the University of Chicago, is some socialist radical. This is purely political at a time when the economy is melting down. There's a lot of blame to spread around here.

Now We Know

The White House apparently has a line they won't cross when it comes to hiring employees. They don't care about competence, suitability for the job, whether the applicant previously worked for the company they're supposed to regulate, racial or sexual bigotry, or even if they're "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth." But if you're tight with the Mob, hey, even these guys have standards.

On December 2, 2004, President Bush announced that his pick to replace Tom Ridge as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security was Bernard Kerik. On December 10th, a Friday, at 8:30 p.m., Kerik suddenly withdrew his nomination, explaining in a statement that he'd discovered that his former housekeeper and nanny might not be a legal immigrant and that he hadn't paid taxes on her. It was the sole reason given for his withdrawal, both in his statement and in subsequent comments by White House officials.

But Kerik's indictment last Thursday indicates that the White House was dealing with bigger problems: Kerik's ties to the mob.

The centerpiece of the indictment was Kerik's acceptance, from 1999 through 2000, of $255,000 worth of apartment renovations (including a marble rotunda) from executives with Interstate Industrial Corporation, a company with ties to the Gambino crime family. The feds say that Kerik, who was NYC corrections commissioner and then police commissioner during the time in question, worked on Interstate's behalf in return for the money, work that included attempting to convince city investigators that the company was free of mob ties so that it could get city contracts.

Unfortunately for Kerik, the secret of his ties to Interstate began to unravel just about the time of his nomination. On December 2nd, the same day that Bush announced Kerik was his pick, The New York Daily News, which had been digging for six weeks on Kerik's ties to Interstate, sent him a list of questions about those ties.

On December 5th, the indictment alleges, Kerik "made various false and misleading statements about his relationship with [Interstate and it's top executives]" in an email to a White House official (who remains unnamed). It was one of several allegedly false and misleading statements that Keik is charged in the indictment with making to White House officials. However, unlike the other false statements, which appear from the indictment to involves sins of omission -- like failure to disclose -- the language of the indictment suggests that the December 5th email was an affirmative misrepresentation. In other words, in the thick of the vetting process, the White House was asking Kerik about his ties to Interstate.

Arabian Horse Association guy tapped for head of FEMA, OK. Mob, ya gotta go. Good to know.