Harry Reid Suddenly Likes Recess Appointments

During the last year or so of George Bush's presidency the Senate never adjourned. They played this silly game where one Senator would show up every day supposedly to keep the body in session, all so that Bush couldn't make recess appointments the Dems didn't want. Harry Reid was quite vocal in his opposition to such appointments.

Well, Harry has suddenly had a change of heart:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used to consider recess appointments “an end run around the Senate and the Constitution” — so much so that he kept the chamber open during breaks to prevent President George W. Bush from making any more of them.

But with a Democrat in the White House, and Republicans blocking executive branch nominees, Reid and his allies are starting to sing a different tune.

Reid said last week that he’s “tried hard” to avoid the need for President Barack Obama to make recess appointments, but he added: “What alternative do we have?

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) has placed a blanket hold on all of Obama’s pending executive branch nominees — a senatorial prerogative that leaves Democrats unable to confirm nominees without first getting 60 votes on time-consuming cloture motions.

A senior Democratic aide calls Shelby’s move a “perversion of senatorial courtesy” that “makes recess appointments fair game.”

Shelby has placed the hold on nominees to jam the administration on two home-state issues: He wants changes in the bidding process for the Pentagon’s air-to-air refueling tanker, which could lead to jobs in his state, and he wants an FBI counterterrorism lab to be built in Alabama.

Democrats say Shelby’s hold puts a fine point on their argument that Republicans are abusing Senate procedures to stall bills and nominees — and that that will make recess appointments politically palatable in a way that they haven’t been before.

Now just to be clear, I'm not approving what Shelby is doing. It's a blatant attempt to generate pork for his home state and in an age where such antics are no longer popular with the public, he's doing himself and his party a disservice.

However, this is yet another example of how ethics are very flexible when it comes to Democrats. Whatever will help them prevail is what's ethical today. We shouldn't be surprised.