Ruth Marcus is outraged that President Obama would subvert democracy by making a recess appointment to get around Republican filibustering (my emphasis):
And as a matter of good government, the president's move to snub the Senate and install Berwick by recess appointment was outrageous. Using -- more accurately, abusing -- this mechanism to make appointments during a Senate recess is a bipartisan temptation. All presidents succumb, and Obama is facing a more implacably recalcitrant Senate minority. Yet the original purpose of recess appointments was to let government function during the long stretches with Congress away, but that's water under the constitutional bridge.
Marcus says she doesn't have a problem with Berwick himself -- she's outraged by process, not substance.
Of course, this process should not be unfamiliar to Marcus. Why? Well:
Bush also used recess appointments to elevate Charles Pickering and William Pryor to federal judgeships and to place Deborah Majoras and Jon Leibowitz on the Federal Trade Commission.
Again, my emphasis. Here's why:
He [Leibowitz] lives in Bethesda with his wife, Ruth Marcus, and his two daughters, Emma and Julia.
This isn't a knock on Leibowitz -- President Obama reappointed him to the FTC and he's now Chairman of the commission.
But Ruth Marcus should know better than to get outraged about recess appointments. Recess appointments aren't the outrage here. If there's a procedural issue to get outraged over, it's the filibuster, because Republicans are using it over and over and over again to block the nation's business in order to score political points.
When Republicans abuse the filibuster to induce gridlock, Congress might as well be out of session. Not only was the President correct to use the recess appointment to get around their obstructionist tactics, it was his responsibility.
He's not the villain here. Republican abuse of the filibuster is.