The Villagers and the far right are united in their excitement at the prospect of putting Fox News in the henhouse.
by digby
My piece in Salon today is about the “suggestion” from Glenn Reynolds that President Obama appoint a Republican to be the new Attorney General:
It must be football season because here comes Lucy with the football just begging poor old Charlie Brown to kick it one more time. Well, actually, it’s right wingers once again insisting to liberals that they need to be more bipartisan to appease the opposition. They must get a lot of laughs down at wingnut central over that one.
The latest example would be the very earnest suggestion in USA Today from professor Glenn Reynolds who says that President Obama should prove he isn’t really the tyrannical despot everyone thinks he is by appointing a Republican to head the Justice Department:
Perhaps President Obama — and, for that matter, future presidents — should take a lesson from the way we handle the Department of Defense, and apply it to the Department of Justice: Consider naming someone outside his own party as attorney general…
Having a Defense secretary from the other party makes war bipartisan, and reassures members of the opposition that the powers of the sword aren’t being abused.
But, of course, he’s only referring to the tradition of appointing members of the opposite party as Secretary of Defense under Democratic presidents. Republicans don’t do that.
As it happens Obama appointed three Republicans to his cabinet in 2009, the most ever in history. He kept Robert Gates on as Secretary of Defense and appointed Ray LaHood at Transportation and Senator Judd Gregg at Commerce. (Gregg dropped out before he could be confirmed as Secretary of Commerce.) Here’s the record of prior presidents:
Read on. Let’s just say that only one party appoints members of the opposition to the Defense Department. And it isn’t the Republicans. Moreover, they aren’t ever “reassured”. Click over to see some of the lovely comments from Reynolds about Chuck Hagel that Roy Edroso found.
But apparently, this is all the rage now in the Village too. People are seriously suggesting that the President appoint a certified GOP war criminal as head of the Secret Service. And now Jane Harman thinks Obama should appoint one of the most partisan character assassins on the planet — Ted Olsen — as Attorney General. (You know, it’s great that some conservatives don’t hate gay people. I’m all for it. But that alone doesn’t erase someone’s despicable political behavior or destructive ideology … just saying.) I guess it isn’t enough that Democrats are always obliged to appoint Republicans to Secretary of Defense and the head of the FBI lest Republicans accuse them of being partisan (which they do anyway), they must also agree to put Republicans in charge of all Federal law enforcement.
In other words Republicans are now supposed to be permanently in charge of the military and law enforcement. Feel safer? I know I do.
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