Republicans’ appalling confirmation record is symptomatic of their entire approach to politics

[homersapien 11,385]

Neera Tanden, President Biden's nominee to be director of the Office of Management and Budget, testifies during a Senate Budget Committee hearing on Feb. 10. (Andrew Harnik/AP)

Opinion by

Jennifer Rubin

Columnist

Feb. 24, 2021 at 2:16 p.m. EST

 

The White House on Wednesday issued a fierce defense of Neera Tanden, President Biden’s nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, following the delay of committee votes on her confirmation:

Neera Tanden is a leading policy expert who brings critical qualifications to the table during this time of unprecedented crisis.

— Jen Psaki (@PressSec) February 24, 2021

She has a broad spectrum of support, ranging from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to labor unions, and has a strong record of working with both parties that we expect to grow in President Biden's cabinet as the first South Asian woman to lead OMB.

— Jen Psaki (@PressSec) February 24, 2021

The galling double standard that Senate Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) apply to nominees — they approved of Richard Grenell, whose misogynistic tweets and hyperpartisanship were not barriers for his ambassadorship, but object to Neera Tanden’s partisan criticism of Republican hypocrisy — should not obscure an even bigger problem with Republicans’ selective outrage.

Republicans (and Manchin for that matter) routinely confirmed utterly unqualified, partisan and unfit nominees under the previous administration because these were the president’s choices. Consider former secretary of state Rex Tillerson, who had zero public-sector experience and delivered one of the worst confirmation hearing performances in memory. All 52 Republicans voted for him, as did Manchin. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who inexplicably dubbed Tanden as inexperienced, voted to confirm him as well.

Or consider Mike Pompeo, who as a congressman conducted a partisan fishing expedition into Hillary Clinton’s actions based on false information. Nominated for CIA director — a position for which nonpartisanship is essential — every Republican but Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) voted to confirm him, as did Manchin. Try to find a theory by which Pompeo is considered temperamentally suited to be CIA chief and a long-time policy wonk such as Tanden should be excluded from OMB. You won’t find one — other than mean-spirited partisanship.

Take a rhetorical bomb thrower and right-wing radical such as Mick Mulvaney, also nominated for director of Office of Management and Budget. He gleefully championed the 2013 federal government shutdown (“good policy” he called it). Other than the late John McCain, not a single Republican (Collins included) opposed him. He was sufficiently bipartisan, but Tanden is not? Are we supposed to believe that senators who ignored a president who was banned from Twitter for four years was “offended” by Tanden or “concerned” about partisanship? Please.

Twenty Republicans opposed the confirmation of Linda Thomas-Greenfield as ambassador to the United Nations, despite her being an African American woman with decades of experience in the Foreign Service. Not experienced enough? These were the Republicans that rubber-stamped, for example, John Ratcliffe, the prior president’s intemperate, unqualified pick for director of national intelligence.

It is long past time that we stop giving credence to Republicans (and Manchin, who seeks to camouflage himself in their midst) for their concocted rationales for indefensible, hyperpartisan conduct. The nub of the problem is not Tanden’s tweets or partisanship; it is the persistent Republican belief that a Democratic president is not entitled to the same deference the GOP extended to the disgraced, incompetent president even as he nominated cronies and ethically challenged and unqualified nominees beset by conflicts of interest.

Their attitude toward nominations is symptomatic of their entire approach to politics: It is about theater, about feeding right-wing media (which loves nothing better than to paint progressives as extreme radicals) and never about governance, let alone bipartisanship.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/24/republicans-appalling-confirmation-record-is-symptomatic-their-entire-approach-politics/

[CleCoTiger 1,957]

The Republican strategy boils down to this: Oppose, oppose, oppose. Good governance be damned, oppose. The only thing that matters is to hamstring a Democratic administration in an effort to see to it that Democrats get only one term in the White House, the good of the nation and what is right be damned.

[Strychnine 1,802]

5 hours ago, CleCoTiger said:

The Republican strategy boils down to this: Oppose, oppose, oppose. Good governance be damned, oppose. The only thing that matters is to hamstring a Democratic administration in an effort to see to it that Democrats get only one term in the White House, the good of the nation and what is right be damned.

 

As a resident of Georgia, I cannot tell you how much I've heard about various individuals' "radical socialist agendas" over the last year.  The overwhelming rural response to that?  "Oppose, oppose, oppose!"  Alternative policy?  "No!  Oppose!"  Can any progress be made?  "No!  Oppose!"  While Obama is no longer president, would you deposit the contents of a briefcase full of cash if Obama personally delivered it to your house?  "Yes!  Oppose!"

[DKW 86 7,426]

Tanden is universally reviled by Republicans and Progressives. She is flat not qualified for the job. As OMB she would be handing out ethics waivers for lobbyists and congressional people. She has a long history of taking money from the wrong people. She has ZERO experience in this field. There are literally 100s of better qualified people. Now add in the fact that she displays little to no professionalism, no civility, has ethical problems by the dozens. She is easily a candidate for worst OMB Director ever nominated. Republicans, Dems, and Progs all despise her. Her opposition is literally tri-partisan. if that is a word. 

[DKW 86 7,426]

All of you are missing the point, it isnt the Republicans killing her nomination. Its Dems and Progs blowing her up. The Republicans cant stop anythinv anymore. This is Bidens people saying no to Tanden

[I_M4_AU 7,853]

1 hour ago, DKW 86 said:

Now add in the fact that she displays little to no professionalism, no civility, has ethical problems by the dozens.

Didn’t people just vote out a President with the same personality?  I really don’t see an issue with not wanting that type of personality in a position of leadership.

[AuburnNTexas 7,150]

This is not a political issue. If you were hiring somebody into a company and that person had bad mouthed multiple people in your company including you or a friend of yours and you were one of the people who had to decide to hire this person you would turn this person down.  This lady based on the tweets she sent out about people on both the left she won't be given the job. 

She created her own bed and has to sleep in it. What is amazing with Biden saying he wanted to try and repair the damage and get people working together again why he would even have nominated her in the first place.

[DKW 86 7,426]

5 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

Didn’t people just vote out a President with the same personality?  I really don’t see an issue with not wanting that type of personality in a position of leadership.

Pretty much...

[homersapien 11,385]

22 hours ago, AuburnNTexas said:

This is not a political issue. If you were hiring somebody into a company and that person had bad mouthed multiple people in your company including you or a friend of yours and you were one of the people who had to decide to hire this person you would turn this person down.  This lady based on the tweets she sent out about people on both the left she won't be given the job. 

She created her own bed and has to sleep in it. What is amazing with Biden saying he wanted to try and repair the damage and get people working together again why he would even have nominated her in the first place.

She is not applying for a job in the senate, she will work in the Biden administration.

This is about rank hypocrisy and the application of double standards: 

The people concerned about Neera Tanden’s incivility sure didn’t seem to mind the Trump era’s

Opinion by

Karen Tumulty

Columnist

Feb. 23, 2021

It has become a rite of the modern presidential transition: The gods of politics demand a human sacrifice, the Senate torpedoes a nomination, the new administration takes a hit, and everyone moves on.

But the case of Neera Tanden, President Biden’s embattled choice to direct the Office of Management and Budget, presents a new twist.

Tanden is amply qualified for the job. She is not accused of failing to pay her taxes or hiring an undocumented household worker. She is not on the ideological fringes. There has been no scandal in her personal life.

Her supposedly unpardonable sin is . . . incivility. Specifically, she used intemperate language on Twitter.

With the defection of Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, her nomination looks to be sunk in the evenly divided Senate if she cannot win the support of at least one Republican.

It doesn’t help that many of the social media posts at issue were directed at senators themselves. Tanden referred to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as “Voldemort,” the Harry Potter villain, and “Moscow Mitch.” She labeled Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) “pathetic” and “the worst.” And she declared that “vampires have more heart than Ted Cruz,” the widely reviled Republican senator from Texas.

Granted, her tweets were rude and juvenile. But they were fairly tame compared with what one sees on Twitter every day. According to the media intelligence platform Zignal Labs, McConnell has been called “Moscow Mitch” on Twitter nearly 11.9 million times over the past two years.

Tanden has deleted the worst of her posts and apologized. Which is more than can be said for Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who in November tweeted this about Tanden and a clergyman who is now his Senate colleague from Georgia: “.@neeratanden’s tweets read like a @ReverendWarnock sermon: Filled with hate & guided by the woke left. Just as he’s unfit to serve in the U.S. Senate, she’s unfit to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.”

The sanctimony of Republican senators is newfound and rich, given how unstirred they were by the most powerful social media bully on earth leading their party from the White House for the past four years. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), who has declared Tanden “radioactive,” said last June, after Donald Trump tweeted one of his egregiously false conspiracy theories: “You know a lot of this stuff just goes over my head.”

Manchin’s calculation here is a little less obvious. It may be that, coming from one of the reddest states, he feels the need to show some independence from the Biden administration.

But his stated reason, the “toxic and detrimental impact” of Tanden’s “overtly partisan statements,” is hard to take at face value.

Manchin, after all, voted in 2018 to confirm Richard Grenell as ambassador to Germany. He was apparently unconcerned — as were 55 of his Senate colleagues — with the diplomatic skills of a social media troll who in the past had tweeted that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “is starting to look like Madeleine Albright” and that MSNBC host Rachel Maddow should “take a breath and put on a necklace.” Grenell’s social media lowlights also included mocking the hairstyle of Callista Gingrich, who was later named Trump’s ambassador to the Vatican.

Nor has sharp-elbowed partisanship previously been a disqualifier for budget directors. Mick Mulvaney, confirmed 51 to 49 in 2017, helped found the hard-right Freedom Caucus in the House during his time as a South Carolina congressman. The lone Republican dissenter was Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who cited Mulvaney’s past votes to slash defense spending — a legitimate difference over policy.

It seems fair to wonder whether sexism is a factor working against Tanden in the male-dominated Senate — or, as conservative strategist William Kristol put it, whether “these tweets sound harsher to these old guys because they’re coming from a woman.”

All of this has surprised the Biden White House. While its vetters were aware of Tanden’s tweets, they did not expect them to emerge as a major roadblock to installing the president’s pick for budget director during a national economic crisis. On the other hand, their fears of strong pushback from the left, stemming from Tanden’s frequent criticism of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), have not materialized as a major threat.

For now at least, the president is standing behind Tanden, and White House officials gamely say they believe she still has a path to confirmation. They have stepped up lobbying efforts on her behalf, and Tanden herself has met with 44 senators so far to plead her case.

But given the general climate on social media, Republicans would do well to worry what might happen to a GOP president’s nominees in the future. If senators really want to usher in a new standard of civility, the first thing they might want to consider is whether it should begin with forgiveness.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-people-concerned-about-neera-tandens-incivility-sure-didnt-seem-to-mind-the-trump-eras/2021/02/23/26c74956-7529-11eb-8115-9ad5e9c02117_story.html

 

[DKW 86 7,426]

3 hours ago, homersapien said:

She is not applying for a job in the senate, she will work in the Biden administration.

This is about rank hypocrisy and the application of double standards: 

The people concerned about Neera Tanden’s incivility sure didn’t seem to mind the Trump era’s

Opinion by

Karen Tumulty

Columnist

Feb. 23, 2021

It has become a rite of the modern presidential transition: The gods of politics demand a human sacrifice, the Senate torpedoes a nomination, the new administration takes a hit, and everyone moves on.

But the case of Neera Tanden, President Biden’s embattled choice to direct the Office of Management and Budget, presents a new twist.

Tanden is amply qualified for the job. She is not accused of failing to pay her taxes or hiring an undocumented household worker. She is not on the ideological fringes. There has been no scandal in her personal life.

Her supposedly unpardonable sin is . . . incivility. Specifically, she used intemperate language on Twitter.

With the defection of Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, her nomination looks to be sunk in the evenly divided Senate if she cannot win the support of at least one Republican.

It doesn’t help that many of the social media posts at issue were directed at senators themselves. Tanden referred to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as “Voldemort,” the Harry Potter villain, and “Moscow Mitch.” She labeled Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) “pathetic” and “the worst.” And she declared that “vampires have more heart than Ted Cruz,” the widely reviled Republican senator from Texas.

Granted, her tweets were rude and juvenile. But they were fairly tame compared with what one sees on Twitter every day. According to the media intelligence platform Zignal Labs, McConnell has been called “Moscow Mitch” on Twitter nearly 11.9 million times over the past two years.

Tanden has deleted the worst of her posts and apologized. Which is more than can be said for Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who in November tweeted this about Tanden and a clergyman who is now his Senate colleague from Georgia: “.@neeratanden’s tweets read like a @ReverendWarnock sermon: Filled with hate & guided by the woke left. Just as he’s unfit to serve in the U.S. Senate, she’s unfit to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.”

The sanctimony of Republican senators is newfound and rich, given how unstirred they were by the most powerful social media bully on earth leading their party from the White House for the past four years. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), who has declared Tanden “radioactive,” said last June, after Donald Trump tweeted one of his egregiously false conspiracy theories: “You know a lot of this stuff just goes over my head.”

Manchin’s calculation here is a little less obvious. It may be that, coming from one of the reddest states, he feels the need to show some independence from the Biden administration.

But his stated reason, the “toxic and detrimental impact” of Tanden’s “overtly partisan statements,” is hard to take at face value.

Manchin, after all, voted in 2018 to confirm Richard Grenell as ambassador to Germany. He was apparently unconcerned — as were 55 of his Senate colleagues — with the diplomatic skills of a social media troll who in the past had tweeted that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “is starting to look like Madeleine Albright” and that MSNBC host Rachel Maddow should “take a breath and put on a necklace.” Grenell’s social media lowlights also included mocking the hairstyle of Callista Gingrich, who was later named Trump’s ambassador to the Vatican.

Nor has sharp-elbowed partisanship previously been a disqualifier for budget directors. Mick Mulvaney, confirmed 51 to 49 in 2017, helped found the hard-right Freedom Caucus in the House during his time as a South Carolina congressman. The lone Republican dissenter was Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who cited Mulvaney’s past votes to slash defense spending — a legitimate difference over policy.

It seems fair to wonder whether sexism is a factor working against Tanden in the male-dominated Senate — or, as conservative strategist William Kristol put it, whether “these tweets sound harsher to these old guys because they’re coming from a woman.”

All of this has surprised the Biden White House. While its vetters were aware of Tanden’s tweets, they did not expect them to emerge as a major roadblock to installing the president’s pick for budget director during a national economic crisis. On the other hand, their fears of strong pushback from the left, stemming from Tanden’s frequent criticism of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), have not materialized as a major threat.

For now at least, the president is standing behind Tanden, and White House officials gamely say they believe she still has a path to confirmation. They have stepped up lobbying efforts on her behalf, and Tanden herself has met with 44 senators so far to plead her case.

But given the general climate on social media, Republicans would do well to worry what might happen to a GOP president’s nominees in the future. If senators really want to usher in a new standard of civility, the first thing they might want to consider is whether it should begin with forgiveness.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-people-concerned-about-neera-tandens-incivility-sure-didnt-seem-to-mind-the-trump-eras/2021/02/23/26c74956-7529-11eb-8115-9ad5e9c02117_story.html

 

 

[DKW 86 7,426]

For God's Sake, at least get one thing right here. The delusion and wishful thinking is just crazy.

1`) The Republicans cant stop anything BY THEMSELVES. 

2) Tanden has pissed off so many Democrats and Progs this was really a waste of time nomination. 

3) not even the most middle of the road, milquetoasts can stand and support her.  

This has just about nothing to do with the Republicans. The Progs and some not totally sold out to NeoLiberalism Dems want nothing to do with her.  

She has a non-professional career track. She has ethical issues taking money from the worst people in DC. She has ZERO Experience in anything associated with OMB. She has managed to piss of half of DC all by her lonesone and we arent even talking tweets. The Trumpist Tweets are just a sideshow from those that have nothing else to talk about and cant bring themselves to actually address the other glaring issues with her. She has the temperament and likeability of a chainsaw. 

As manager of the OMB, she would be tasked to allow ethical waivers for lobbyists, and donations, gifts, etc. She could not be a worse choice on this one thing. Her entire career has been destroying some of the same people that the Senators are now defending. She is a fricking liar as big as Trump is about Bernie. She was just a cosmically bad choice and defending her is a waste of time and political capital.