The White House has just announced recess appointments of six people who’d been held up by Senate filibusters or holds. The two controversial moves: new Deputy U.S. Attorney General James M. Cole and new Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford. Republicans had lit into Cole over a 2002
for terrorist trials in civilian courts; they opposed Ford simply because we
hadn’t had a Syrian ambassador
since 2005, and giving the country one was seen as a bestowing of legitimacy that the country doesn’t deserve.
