Bush sneaks in Fox

By Libby Spencer

No corrupt crony goes unrewarded in the Bush White House and Republican fundraiser Sam Fox is no exception. Fox, most notable for having funded the Swift Boat Liars, was on the fast track to failure when Bush pulled his nomination for Ambassador to Belgium. On Wednesday, Bush pulled his usual circumvention of the time-honored confirmation process and gave Fox the gig via a recess appointment. This means Fox has the job pretty much through the end of Bush's term in office.

Unsurprisingly this was met with a great amount of indignation from the Senate. Bob Geiger has Chris Dodd's reaction, which pretty well sums it up.

"It is outrageous that the President has sought to stealthily appoint Sam Fox to the position of ambassador to Belgium when the President formally requested that the Fox nomination be withdrawn from the Senate because it was facing certain defeat in the Foreign Relations Committee last week," said Dodd. "I seriously question the legality of the President's use of the recess appointment authority in this instance. I intend to seek an opinion on the legality of this appointment from the General Accountability Office and invite other Senators to join with me in that request."

Dodd adds, "This is underhanded and an abuse of Executive authority -- sadly this behavior has become the hallmark of this administration."

This will indeed be Bush's legacy I think. From his equally underhanded recess appointment of the uncouth boor John Bolton to the UN, to his dunderheaded appointment of the hapless Heckuva Job Brownie, Bush will go down in history as the most arrogantly out of touch President in the history of our nation. Instead of realizing Grover Norquist's dream of shrinking the government until it could be drowned in a bathtub, he instead drowned our formerly great country in a virtual sea of corrupt and incompetent thugs.

I remember when Bush was first appointed and everyone was talking about how great that he was the first CEO President, but it turns out an MBA doesn't mean much when it's bought and paid for with Daddy's endowments to the university. Hell, I'll bet his best subject at school was recess.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)