Recess Appointments: Some might argue that the filibusters by Senate Democrats justifies the recess appointments that I discussed yesterday. I think not; see here for an expansion of a letter I wrote to the editor on the matter; comments against the nomination of Judge Pryor can be found here. The other recess nominee, Judge Pickering, is generally held to be much less qualified, and has many problems aside from the ideological.
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Several dozen interviews with administration officials and with scientists in and out of government, along with a variety of documents, show that the core of the clash is over instances in which scientists say that objective and relevant information is ignored or distorted in service of pre-established policy goals. Scientists were essentially locked out of important internal White House debates; candidates for advisory panels were asked about their politics as well as their scientific work; and the White House exerted broad control over how scientific findings were to be presented in public reports or news releases.
-- Bush vs. the Laureates: How Science Became a Partisan Issue
The stem cell issue has been used by the Democrats as an emotional campaign tool with references made to the recently deceased Christopher Reeve and others with ailments that might benefit from such research. This is a real issue, one that involves scientific research that has unclear but possibly great potential, and the President's stance does not really stand to scrutiny. [This is particularly annoying given how we were supposed to be sooo impressed about how much time he gave to the issue, how much he deeply examined his conscience, and so on.]
As I have discussed in the past, however, this particular issue is best seen as part of an overall administration philosophy on science, one much more troubling than individual (if catchy) examples. The cited article suggests the true breadth of the matter as does the citations in my original discussion of the matter.
The basic problems involved, including a failure to properly allow real discussion and dissent, is also examined by Al Gore's latest speech. I caught a piece of it last night after the baseball excitement, and it's worth checking out in full.
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Charles Schumer (D-NY) is running for re-election, and I caught part of the debate that aired on Sunday morning. Given his opponents are a Republican nonentity (who said "I agree with the senator" a bit too much for a true conservative to be happy with him) and a Right To Life candidate (a serious looking woman), I don't think he is too worried.
A few things. One, Sen. Schumer has this preachy style about him that annoys me, even if I agree with his basic beliefs, such as his challenge against the President's perversion of the judicial nomination process. Two, why do so many Dems have to go out of their way to say they believe marriage is between a man and a woman? Oh, they believe in civil rights and civil unions, but "marriage" is soooo different. Thus, he supported DOMA to "defend" it. Oh, please.
Finally, his opponent used a tactic used by some Bush supporters against Kerry -- Sen. Schumer didn't put forth much legislation that passed into law. I understand the value of such tactics, but it still is pretty silly. The job of all five hundred and thirty-eight (voting) members of Congress is not to formulate legislation. This is especially the case for senators, who have a special constitutional role in regards to appointments and foreign policy. Anyway, a lot of the real law making happens behind the scenes and in the area of amendments to original bills.
At any rate, balance of power concerns makes every other than impossible to support Democrat in the Senate quite important. For instance, one reason there were not filibusters of judicial nominees when the Republicans were in control of the Senate was that Sen. Hatch (chairman of the Judiciary Committee) didn't call for hearings of certain controversial nominees. The fact that a few liberal Republicans, including Sen. Jeffords (then a Republican), might vote with the Democrats on many issues did not matter so much in that case. Republicans might reverse the principle, depending on their wont.