Hmm … This is interesting. The Obama administration sent the Berwick nomination to the Senate on Monday for confirmation. This seems pretty odd considering that the President gave the man a recess appointment on July 7:
President Barack Obama still wants the U.S. Senate to confirm Donald Berwick as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services … Obama resubmitted Berwick’s nomination to the Senate today.
This would seem to defeat the purpose of the recess appointment, which was presumably to prevent those evil Republicans from asking Berwick questions about his controversial opinions and conflicts of interest.
The “news” media have been lying, by the way, about why there have been no confirmaton hearings for Berwick, who was nominated in April. They keep saying that the hearings were held up by the GOP.
In reality, it was the Democrats who stalled the hearings because they didn’t want to re-open the Obamacare debate just before the midterm elections. The Republican Senators were dying to get at him.
It’ll be interesting to see if there are hearings after all. I kinda doubt it.
UPDATE:
Well, my doubts were apparently well founded. It’s pretty clear that the people who run Congress (for now) have no intention of VOLUNTARILY allowing the public to actually hear what our new CMS administrator believes about rationing and redistribution. We all need join Michelle Malkin in her call to free Donald Berwick.
Comments 2
Given that the Obama administration has stated that this is “simply a formality”, does that mean that the Senate has any actual power to remove Berwick?
Or does the recess appointment stand even if the Senate votes to reject him? In other words, is this just empty political theater or is there some actual substance?
Posted 20 Jul 2010 at 10:56 am ¶My bet is “empty political theater.” I don’t think they can reject him, but I’d like to see him questioned about his wacky views.
Posted 20 Jul 2010 at 11:01 am ¶Post a Comment