Apparently Dianne Feinstein’s not the only committee chair who didn’t get advance notification about who Barack Obama wanted to pick for key jobs. Also Barbara Boxer seems to think we were born yesterday:
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Obama did not alert her before announcing two major environmental picks: Lisa Jackson, his nominee for Environmental Protection Agency administrator, and Carol Browner, the new climate change czar. Boxer leads the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
“Maybe it’s because he didn’t want a lot of people knowing his choices, didn’t want to leak things out,” Boxer said. “That could be. But I think the chair of a committee can be trusted.”
You can make the case that Obama did the wrong thing here, but I really don’t think it can be argued that he did the wrong thing from an information security perspective. Keeping congress in the loop would have meant more leaks. And of course Obama’s picks give every sign that they’ll sail through congress, with the apparent exception of Eric Holder whom conservatives want to embarrass themselves by trying to trip up.
Previous in TP Yglesias
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