Blaming Rahm 2

On the other hand...

Before leaving for the President’s Day break, the Senate tonight confirmed — by unanimous consent — 27 of President Obama's nominees to federal positions, under a threat made earlier this week by the president that he might make recess appointments not requiring Senate votes.

Well, that's all well and good and all, but the president's critics are right to say: what took him so long?   Gosh, the president goes twelve months without saying much if anything about the delays in nominations, and then within days of making a fuss about it (and threatening recess appointments), suddenly the Republicans are at least somewhat cooperative. 

Sixty votes is a real barrier, and it's not fair to blame Obama (or Rahm) for not having the votes.  But he and the Democrats do have some tools to use (recess appointments, reconciliation, threatening the nuclear option), and I think it's a fair criticism to complain that they've been too slow to use, or at least threaten to use, those tools.