it's recess! time to appoint some cronies

from InterPress Service:

WASHINGTON - Resorting once more to controversial "recess" appointments, U.S. President George W. Bush has named two political cronies to key administration positions without Senate approval.
...
Bush appointed half a dozen other officials Tuesday whose nominations had been held up in the Senate, but most, such as that of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, were less controversial or politically charged than those of Sauerbrey and Smith.

Recess appointments, historically very unusual, have become far more common under Bush, who has generally resorted to them for nominees whose right-wing ideological tendencies have made it unlikely or impossible for them to be confirmed by the Senate as a whole.
...
Sauerbrey's nomination has been particularly controversial. It was opposed by three of the nation's most important newspapers, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, both because of her far-right ideological views and her almost total lack of relevant experience, particularly in emergency relief operations, which her office oversees.

In that respect, the timing of her nomination was particularly unfortunate, coinciding with the disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), then headed by another political appointee with no relevant experience, Michael Brown.
...
After Bush's 2000 election, Sauerbrey, who served as chair of his campaign in Maryland, was appointed to a low-profile State Department post, eventually becoming U.S. representative to the Economic and Social Council of the U.N.'s Commission on the Status of Women.

As ambassador, she has pushed her ideological views, including her staunch opposition to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women -- a position which the Bush administration shares with Iran, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia -- and to any form of abortion rights.

Shouldn't be a single thing in here that's surprising. The "up or down vote, let the process work" Republican party that throws tantrums when things don't go their way has no problem monkeying with it themselves when it suits their needs. Oh, and isn't it nice to know that when it comes to human rights, Pres. Bush is pushing the agenda of the most inhuman despots in the world?

*emphasis mine