Bush again treats his office with dignity and respect

It’s one thing for a president to make a recess appointment if the appointee is a top quality person whom the Senate is stopping for purely partisan reasons. But to make a recess appointment of a wholly unqualified person whom the Senate is resisting because she’s unqualified—that takes the cake. Yet that’s what our president has done by appointing as head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau Julie Myers, the cute, auburn-haired (love those bangs), 36-year-old niece of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Richard Myers, wife of the chief of staff of Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff, and, by all accounts, including her own, a complete novice in the immigration field. The ICE bureau is of course part of the Department of Homeland Security. All other considerations aside, given Myer’s husband’s position as the top assistant to her own superior, isn’t this appointment grossly inappropriate? Would Myers be considered for this job, if her husband were Secretary of Homeland Security? Since her husband is the chief of staff to the Secretary, isn’t that tantamount to the same thing?

There are some good comments on this at the steinreport blog that I linked. I like this one:

I fully support the Myers nomination.

So long as the Bush administration is committed to open borders, it is a waste of human resources to put anyone competent in charge of any agency involved with immigration.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 06, 2006 04:37 PM | Send