Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Here's something I bet you haven't read about in the media for months: Obama's pick to head the crucial Office of Legal Counsel, Dawn Johnsen, still hasn't gotten a confirmation vote in the Senate. The Judiciary Committee voted in favor of her confirmation way back in March, voting 11-7 to move her nomination to the full Senate. The Senate just held votes on a whole raft of Obama nominees last week, including Sotomayor, and Johnsen still hasn't gotten a vote.
The problem is not a lack of votes to confirm her. There are easily more than 50 votes in the Senate in her favor. Ben Johnson (D-Neb) says he plans to vote against her, but Richard Luger has endorsed her nomination. Arlen Specter hinted at opposing her before he switched parties. They have 57 votes at a bare minimum. The problem is having 60 votes to invoke cloture.
There apparently is no formal hold on her nomination, but Harry Reid has not held a vote to close the debate and take a vote on her confirmation. A group of legal scholars that ran the gamut from liberal to conservative to libertarian all signed a letter back in April urging her confirmation. Talking Points Memo back in May blamed it all on Reid and I'm inclined to agree.
Reid is a staggeringly incompetent leader in the Senate. If Hillary Clinton was still in the Senate, I would not be surprised if she had managed to stage a coup by now and replaced him. And frankly, that would be a good thing. For all her other faults, Hillary knows how to play the political game far better than Reid. She would have been a far more capable leader for the Democrats. So would fellow New Yorker Chuck Schumer.
Dawn Johnsen is perhaps the single best nomination Obama has made. There are at least 57 votes for her confirmation. If the Senate majority leader can't get her nomination through the court after this long, he needs to be replaced.
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I would not claim to understand the internal machinations of the Senate, but Reid as Senate Majority Leader is even more disconcerting than Sen. Frist was when the GOP held the majority. There are a number of extremely competent Democratic Senators, why do they allow such a bumbler as Harry Reid to both lead them and be their face to the American public?
Posted by: Michael Heath | August 14, 2009 9:13 AM
Michael Heath:
I was listening to my weekly TNN (Tinfoil Network Newz) and I have the answer re: why "Harry Reid and the Gavel of Doomed Nominations".
Y'see, Harry is just being used as a placeholder while the
"cloaked" labs of the CDCIA work on cloning Harry Truman from some fingernail scrapings. When the new and improved HT is up and running, they will simply "heart attack" Mr. Reid and replace him with Harry Truman, much like that Ronald Reagan look-alike actor did with the Folger's Instant Coffee crystals in that fancy N'awlins eatery.
Dude, if you need some help crammin' for the entry test for being a birfer or a troofer, say the word!
Posted by: democommie | August 14, 2009 9:24 AM
Sometimes I think a sizable number of Democrats LIKE getting nothing done. It's infuriating...Reid is an awful Majority Leader, and a big part of why no leadership comes out of the Senate. But on the good side, the conservatives don't say as many nasty things about Reid as they do about Pelosi, which probably makes Reid feel better.
Posted by: Shygetz | August 14, 2009 9:50 AM
The Democrats in congress, but especially the senate, are truly pathetic. If the Republicans had majorities like the Dems do now, we would have seen every policy proposed by Bush passed within the first year and Congress would have been on vacation for the following seven years. He damn near got everything he wanted and usually had rather narrow margins. The Republicans, as a party, might be utterly incompetent in many of their programs, absolutely bankrupt in principles and ethics, but they know how to rein in their members and get what they want done.
It's about the only admirable trait I've seen in that party in a long, long, time...
Posted by: dogmeatib | August 14, 2009 10:15 AM
The Constitution demands that the Senate allow a straight majority vote on every nominee! Nuklear option! Upperdown! Upperdown!
.. seriously, I am so tired of Democratic parliamentary cowardice. There's no reason why the Dems should need 51 votes to block a Republican president's appointees when the Repubs apparently only need 41 to block a Democratic nominee.
Posted by: mad the swine | August 14, 2009 10:38 AM
dogmeatib @ 4 - I agree that Republicans are often more focused on winning*, an attribute it appears we both agree is one the Democrats should work to improve. However, the GOD did fail miserably in regards to at least two major reform efforts, Immigration and Social Security. Immigration because the party split between the sane approach (Bush and McCain's position) and the insane caucus that now runs the party and appears to be all that's left.
Republicans also failed at financing future unfunded Social Security liabilities because Bush would only reform Social Security financing if it was consistent with conservative talking points. His plan was of course seriously flawed relative to the goals of the program, it would have enriched only Wall Street, not the citizen taking on added risked by allocating funds to private investment. It also failed because even grass roots conservatives hated changing the fundamentals of the program.
*I was never comfortable with my voting for Bush in 2000 over VP Gore, and while I gagged at how Florida's Republican politicians handled that controversy, how Bush's team handled this controversy made me far more comfortable with my vote relative to how Gore and his team handled it. Bush's team assumed judges and elected officials would handle the refereeing and they fought like hell to win. Gore's team on the other hand appeared to fight like one would where style points counted rather than a singular result.
Bush's bringing in Jim Baker III, someone I continue to greatly admire, to lead that effort and his results provided me anecdotal evidence validating Bush would reside as a more competent executive than Gore would have, an assumption that was obviously and convincingly falsified a mere few months later.
Posted by: Michael Heath | August 14, 2009 10:52 AM
Michael,
Definitely, the Republicans did have a couple of failures, but usually those involved issues where their lunatic fringe wouldn't allow them to do anything reasonable.
I disagree with your assessment of the respective handling of the 2000 election on only one point. While the Bush campaign officially handled the election better than the Gore campaign, in the media (with the help of their supporters), they were far less professional, but very organized.
Posted by: dogmeatib | August 14, 2009 1:41 PM
I have been squirming since the 2006 mid-terms, and even more since the 2008 landslide--because, indeed, the Republicans self-destructed, but those wimpy-assed Democrats have been too timid to follow through. And I blame a lot of it on Reid AND Pelosi, neither of whom are at all effective in leadership positions.
It's sad to see that, because of that timidity (or incompetence), even though the Repugs lost the election, they haven't lost their power. It's like high school, with the majority geeks cowering in the corner from the few loud bullies. I wish to Crom that these Dems would friggin' grow a pair!
Posted by: gary l. day | August 14, 2009 2:15 PM
Ben Nelson, not Ben Johnson.
Posted by: Mark Gisleson | August 15, 2009 2:33 PM