While pondering
Melody Townsel's gratifying diary about the Bolton appointment, I discovered that
President Bush bypassed the Senate again today to appoint Peter Cyril Wyche Flory to assistant secretary of defense for international security policy.
Bush's nomination of Flory had languished in the Senate since June 2004, held up by Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan in his fight with the Pentagon over the release of documents mainly related to the Iraq war.
The "recess appointment" by Bush came as Congress was on its August vacation and puts Flory, a Virginian, in the key Defense Department post until January 2007, when the next Congress takes office.
Sen. Levin, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, had been blocking this nomination in an effort to get some traction on the Senate probe of the Bush Administration's misuse of WMD intelligence. That leaves Sen. Levin blocking the appointment of Douglas Feith's successor, Eric Edelman.
"This should not be necessary," Levin said in a phone interview yesterday. "But the Senate is entitled to these documents, and I don't know any other way to get them.
As
Reuters explains:
Levin, ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has also blocked approval of Bush's nomination of Eric Edelman to succeed Douglas Feith as undersecretary of defense for policy.
Levin has demanded documents from the Defense Department on intelligence involving Iraq. He and other Democrats have accused Feith's office of manipulating information to support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Will Bush also use a recess appointment to for Eric Edelman? Do the Democrats have a plan for such a contingency? I'm speculating here, so help me out. My hope is that we can use such an appointment to raise some hell about
Feith's former activities.
