Obama Making Consumer Watchdog Recess Appointment
The Obama administration is recess appointing Richard Cordry to the new consumer watchdog job despite GOP opposition, the AP reports.
White House official Dan Pfeiffer later tweets, “Today in Ohio, President Obama will announce the recess appointment of Consumer Watdhdog Richard Cordray.”
Via TPM
If I hadn’t just made a resolution to be more civil, I’d say, “suck it A1.”
For once, Lucy doesn’t pull the football away from Charlie Brown.
Let the R’s scream, all they’re doing is placing themselves firmly against consumer protection.
I expect Anonone to come here right now and praise President Obama on this action. If he does not, he reveals himself only as an deranged Obama hater with no credibility, akin to Dominique and the other PUMAs.
Obama heaves one shovelful of earth into the enthusiasm gap, backing up his new populist rhetoric with concrete action. It’s a good start on the road back. More please!
As I recently praised the Obama Administration’s implementation of EPA standards on Mercury emissions here, I am glad to see him make this recess appointment, too. Good for him and good for us.
Very good Anonone. I had hoped you would be fair, and you were. Thanks.
ugh.. i find myself made more cynical by this. Why is he only being the president we hoped he would be now that he’s up for re-election? what prevented him from doing this 2 years ago? (i give him the first 1.5 years of the administration that he was really trying to work with the GOP…. after that he should have realized what they were all about) This is very close to too little, almost too late.
Regarding the enthusiasm gap, it seems to be if there is any, it is on the GOP side. The GOP electorate was depressed in 2008, and they got 119,000 to show up for the Iowa caucuses. In 2012, they are supposed to be energized and excited, much more than the Dems, and they get…. drumroll… 122,000. In 2008, the Dems, when they were excited got 238,000.
The GOP is about to nominate someone that 75% of their party hates. The Dems will have a nominee that at least 85% of their party supports.
Ben, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot demand Obama do something and then question why he did it so that you can still criticize him.
For once, for the love of God, be fucking happy. Why liberals have to be so God Damned angry all the fucking time even when they get what they fucking want annoys me as a liberal.
And 25,000 Iowan Dems turned out for Obama last night – pretty close to Mitt’s total.
Also, DD, I have a post scheduled on the republican enthusiasm gap coming up at 11:00.
Excellent.
John Scalzi explains why liberals can’t be happy. There’s much truth in that timeless post.
Good point. Now it is probably more accurate to speak of a Democratic enthusiasm deficit rather than a gap. Time will tell, but Repubs might end up with a bigger enthusiasm deficit than Democrats.
So, regardless of the rest of his horrid record, liberals should all be happy deranged Obama lovers because he is a Democrat; is that what you’re saying?
Obama has done many good things, but they don’t balance the scale against the many hideous things that he has done or good things that he could have done but chose not to. Cynicism and skepticism about Obama’s motivations are well justified by his past behavior, particularly in an election year.
DD, i know i cant have it both ways. if you remember, i was defending his bring-em-together approach for a very long time. I even made myself think that it was what he said he would do the entire campang and anyone who expected THIS type of Obama misunderstood his campaign message. Im awful at the internets or else i would turd-mine my old posts.
You cannot dismiss the coincidence of this new (unless you count his candidate Obama) fightin progressive and the fact it is an election season. you just cant. If every other politician on the face of the earth is capable of being a chameleon and plying politics, so is the only politician Ive ever really been excited about.
Now based on experience, how long is this gonna last. jan 20th 2013? Do we go back to the guy to pragmatic and objective to fight? i’ll gladly eat my words and be happy if this is a definite change, but one month of “good deeds” in the middle of what amounts to his employee review doesn’t impress me. I’ll be happy for what he did but i question the motives.
13 million unemployed people explain why Democrats should work to make liberals happier. That is an even greater timeless truth.
A slight correction, SB: It could last until Wednesday, November 7, 2012. That is the day he becomes a lame duck.
Puck, exactly. That is a huge part of the equation. Plus, consumer protection could have started by beginning to prosecute financial crimes under laws that were already on the books. But this has failed to happen under Obama/Holder. But at least they are going after John Edwards.
So you are actively hoping for a Republican President, is that right Anonone? Closer and closer you get to being a Republican troll.
Brace yourselves for calls for impeachment over this appointment.
For those of you who wanted a fight… you have one now.
Just because I am a not a yellow-dog Democrat doesn’t make me a republican troll.
There is no reason to support a president or a presidential candidate who has destroyed the promise of equal justice under the law, regardless of their party affiliation. That you, as an attorney, can support a President who just signed away your right to habeas corpus is stunning to me, frankly.
dude, at some point you have to embrace reality and understand that your ONLY CHOICE will be Obama, or some Repuke. maybe in some future election there will be a third party candidate who has a shot, but not this time. If you dont vote for Obama, you help the conservatives. That is NOT an opinion. That is a cold hard awful fact you must face.
I like the idea of a true progressive too, but i’m able to admit it aint happening this time
Thank you Ben. But I have found that PUMAs like Anonone actually hope the Democratic President is defeated and a Republican is elected so both the Democratic Party and the American people are punished for not being pure liberal, and that during punishment both will wake up and magically become pure liberal.
It is a dream world, but that where they live.
ben, you may feel that is your only choice, but it is not mine. I cannot and will not support any candidate who is intent on systematically destroying the Bill of Rights, as Obama is doing. That is what is right for me and I respect that you disagree.
a1. all our previous spats and insults to each other aside. please answer just one (group of) question(s). I dont think you want to see a repubican win, but as much as i try to hope otherwise, it is either D or R and nothing will change that any time soon.
Do you think there is someone other than Barack Obama or (we’ll say) Mitt Romney….. given what im sure you know to be true about this country’s electorate, media, etc… who can win 10 months from now? Who is it (name them) and why will they overcome the tens of millions of dollars and entrenched institutions that exist entirely to stop a 3rd party candidate? please, im genuinely interested in your answer. take you time… im almost desperate for a solid argument along those lines.
Del Dem, I have voted for a Democrat for President every year except for one, when I voted for John Anderson. I have almost always voted for the entire Democratic ticket in any election. I don’t think that I have ever voted for a Republican. So you can knock-off the PUMA crap.
The American people are having their Bill of Rights eviscerated in a bipartisan effort that is currently led by a Democratic president. You are doing everything that you can to avoid discussing that. As much as possible, I am a purist when it comes to civil liberties and human rights, and I am proud of it. I believe that it is better to be loyal to a set of principles than it is to be loyal to a political party.
I understand if you disagree.
ben, I think Barak Obama is going to win in a landslide, regardless of my vote. Obama has tacked so far to the right on so many issues, that any republican candidate is going to appear as an extremist when they try to be more conservative then Obama. The power of incumbency should not be underestimated, and Obama will get a lot of corporate PAC support.
Also, I have watched most of the republican debates, and I don’t think anybody running so far is capable of laying a glove on Obama in a debate. Obama is a smart and eloquent person.
A run by a viable “centrist” third party candidate like Bloomberg could change all of the above, but I don’t think that will happen.
What is really delightful (in the political watcher’s sense) is that President Obama made this appointment ignoring the *pro forma session* fig leaf. So he takes the skewed way that the GOP has been using the rules and decided to skew the rules himself. The GOP will whine, but then Obama may have finally put a bullet in this kind of blocking. And GOP whining just highlights what poll after poll already notes — that most Americans get that the people most responsible for DC gridlock are Republicans.
I would also argue (which I’ve argued before) that he couldn’t have done this without trying cooperation and deference to a co-equal body. It is pretty clear that none of that especially works, so he’s largely earned a pass on going around these fools.
Putting a bullet in Silly Senate Rules works for me. Not sure how many of these the President can send to execution, but this one is sorta nice.
I agree. The election optics are working well for him now. As the election season heats up, he’ll need to continue to tie the Republican nominee’s extremism to congressional extremism.
Romney will try to flip/flop back to being less extreme if the GOP picks him, and if they pick Santorum – it will be a 49 state blow out.
Oh no! Not the viable “centrist” third party candidate daydream.
You want to go down that path then you had better be working every day to get proportional voting in Congressional races… unless you have a viable theory how this 3rd party President gets anything done.
thanks, A1. bloomberg would make waves, but i certainly hope that wall street whore isnt your alternative pick.
Pandora, I actually think a 3rd party president gets freedom from any of the powerful parties. a 3rd party win can be framed as a hard core rejection of party politics…. and the individual congresspeople who we KNOW only have loyalty to getting re-elected will follow the winds and buch their party to show how un-party-loyal they really are. It’s all a game to them. a 3rd party present means the game doesnt like the parties, ipso facto, “independent” senators and representatives will abound.
The other thing that may be working for him is the news cycle. NPR has been completely focused on Iowa and its fallout. No word on the Cordrey thing. No idea what the cable yackers are doing tho.
I just checked out Rush Limbaugh and no word on Cordrey he is busy taking credit for Santorum. RedState is outraged as usual. (Now I’m off to scrub myself with Clorox.)
A successful 3rd party is largely a fantasy. The Bloomberg business is basically a right-wing and business funded effort to make sure that too much of the funneling of taxpayer funds to them doesn’t stop. Even if a 3rd party wins, they’d need allies in Congress to govern. In a congress full of people beholden to parties for re-election, it is unlikely that you’ll get too many Liebermans out of it. But you will see plenty of GOPers cooperate from time to time since this 3rd party largely has their agenda.
It isn’t my day dream, pandora, to have a so-called “centrist” third party candidate. I was just pointing out that entrance by a well financed third-party candidate would change the race dynamics. Just ask Bill Clinton or George H. W. Bush about Ross Perot.
Exactly, Cassandra. Where is congress’ incentive to cooperate – except amongst themselves. Hey, bipartisanship!
This appointment is a little different than most. The argument was not just who should be appointed, – the Republicans did not want anyone appointed. There’s no way Obama could have picked a suitable person. They didn’t want the Consumer Financial Protection Agency to have a director. They wanted a commission to run it, so it would be mucked up in partisan gridlock like everything else. Obama was right doing what he did.
For those who fault Obama’s less than aggressive progressiveness, I don’t really remember him coming across as super progressive during the campaign. I always got the feeling he was a practical middle of the road kind of guy. It’s the Obama opposition Fox that labeled him a flaming liberal left revolutionary.
It’s not realistic to expect a new President, facing two very grim wars and a looming Great Depression, to roll into town and start breaking the china. He is a calm in a very stormy time. I’m happy with the Credit Card Act, Dodd-Frank, Affordable Care, collecting most of the TARP money back, saving GM, Sallie Mae, increasing exports, ramping up alternative energy, the way the Gulf oil disaster was handled professionally, the orderly wind down in Iraq, the bin Laden hit, there’s been a lot of good stuff. Don’t bad mouth him too bad. When he came in unemployment was going up and the GDP was going down. Now it’s the opposite.