Comebacker

by digby

Hey, here’s some good news for a change:

In the daily briefing on Tuesday, Gibbs said he did not “know what decisions have been made about nominees that have, as a result of being — having passed a year, need to be re-nominated.”

According to sources, however, the names of those people whose nominations were held up during the past year and are likely to be re-nominated include:

Dawn Johnsen, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel
Christopher Schroeder, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy
Mary Smith, Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division
Craig Becker, National Labor Relations Board
Louis Butler, U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Wisconsin
Edward Chen, U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of California
David Teeples, Army brigadier general

The speculation was that the administration would just drop her nomination, which has been dogged by infighting among the Democrats as much as blocked by Republicans. I’m not sure why they don’t just give her a recess appointment and put her on the job but perhaps they have some information that leads them to believe she’ll be more easily confirmed in the next session. (Or maybe they just don’t care if the job is filled.)

In any case, it’s good news if they do renominate her, even if it’s only to maintain the presidential prerogative to have his administration nominees confirmed except in cases of bad qualifications or severe, radical douchebaggery. Standing up for her because she is an outspoken critic of the torture policies of the Bush administration would be nice too.

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