Under normal circumstances, the fact that the Senate easily confirmed some pending military nominees wouldn’t be especially notable. On the contrary, it’d be so routine that there’d be no national headlines.
But in light of a radical blockade by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., there’s nothing normal about the current circumstances. The New York Times reported:
The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly confirmed Gen. Randy George of the Army and Gen. Eric Smith of the Marines as the chiefs of staff of their respective services, circumventing a single senator’s blockade against senior military promotions but leaving hundreds more still in limbo. The action followed the confirmation on Wednesday night of Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. to serve as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The votes were not close. The confirmation vote on Brown was 83-11 — all of the “no” votes came from Republicans — while the vote on George was 96-1. (Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah was the lone opponent.) Smith, meanwhile, was confirmed without opposition.
It might be tempting to see this as evidence of Tuberville failing, but it’s not nearly that simple: Senate Democratic leaders managed to advance these nominees, not by ending the Alabaman’s blockade, but by going around it. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, for all intents and purposes, decided it was time to jump through the procedural hoops made necessary by the right-wing senator’s radical tactics.
So, does this mean the Tuberville blockade is broken? Actually, the opposite is true. From the Times’ report:
But Mr. Tuberville made it clear that he had no intention of lifting his blockade unless the Defense Department reversed its policy. … If anything, the confirmations seemed only to embolden Mr. Tuberville, as Mr. Schumer had long said he feared they might. The Alabama senator said the only way to get around his obstruction would be for Mr. Schumer to continue to consider the promotions one by one, a time-consuming process that Democrats and many Republicans agree is untenable.
In fact, the coach turned politician boasted this week, in reference to Schumer: “I forced his hand.”
This isn’t something to brag about. Tuberville’s boast is rooted in the idea that he was doing so much harm to his own country’s military that more responsible policymakers scrambled in desperation to go around him. The GOP senator apparently takes a degree of pride in these developments. He should not. Misplaced chest-thumping notwithstanding, where do these developments leave us? This week’s confirmations were heartening for the nominees, their families and their branches, but the underlying problem remains unchanged. There are still hundreds more highly qualified military nominees in need of confirmation; Tuberville’s blockade is still intact; and the process to confirm each of these nominees individually would still take well over 700 hours. Or put another way, the pressure on the Senate Republican to stop undermining the military and start acting responsibly will continue.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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