THE TORTURED LOGIC OF THE "PARTY OF NO"

There is nothing that says you can't balance pro-management members on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with pro-labor nominees, like President Obama's nominee Craig Becker. Still, even though the NLRB fills only two of it's five seats filled, the U.S. Senate refused to confirm Craig Becker's appointment to the NLRB, in spite of a 52-33 vote in favor of his appointment. The culprit? Two hold out Senate Democrats and the fact that the Republicans threatened a filibuster if Becker's nomination was pushed forward.

Here's Sen. Sherrod Brown railing against the Republican tactics.



Incredibly, one of the arguments used to oppose Craig Becker's nomination was that he actually answered all of the questions that were presented to him. According to Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi, the highest-ranking Republican on the committee that approved Becker, the fact that Becker answered hundreds of questions (which were submitted by Republicans) made him suspect because only suspect candidates get asked that many questions.

Huh?

This kind of thinking is akin to when President Bush's legal team made the argument that they couldn't release people who had been tortured during interrogation because, in the process of being tortured, they learned of our torture techniques. Because our methods were considered national security secrets, the argument went, interrogated prisoners could then share this torture information with attorneys and reporters. The enemy would then have an edge. We simply couldn't - according to the Bush administration - take this chance, even if we thought the prisoners were innocent.

You can read the Craig Becker review here.

- Mark