Perino Falsely Claims Congress Has ‘Not Moved Forward’ On Bush’s ‘Good’ Judicial Nominees

THINK PROGRESS

The LA Times reports today that the current 110th Congress has approved more of Bush’s nominees than did the previous GOP-led Congress:

Despite the Republicans’ loss of control of the Senate, 40 of Bush’s judges won confirmation this year, more than in the previous three years when Republicans held the majority.

By contrast, the Republican-controlled Senate in 1996 confirmed only 17 of President Clinton’s judicial nominations.

Despite this record, when asked about President Bush’s “most important priorities” for 2008, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino took the opportunity to bash Congress on its failure to “move forward” on more of the President’s nominees:

And in addition to that, we have many outstanding nominations that need to be confirmed, both judicial and also throughout the government. And it really is unfortunate that Congress has not moved forward on its obligation to have hearings and to hold votes, because the president has nominated very good people.

Bush’s nominees currently being blocked by the Senate are some of the most controversial, despite Perino’s assertion that they are all “very good people.” Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) kept the Senate in a pro forma session over recess to prevent Bush from granting them recess appointments.

For example, senators have objected to Steven Bradbury, acting chief of the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Counsel, who “signed two secret memos in 2005 saying it was OK for the CIA use harsh interrogation techniques” on detainees. Another, James Holsinger, is currently being held up as Surgeon General over his statements that gay sex is “intuitively” unnatural and can lead to “lacerations, perforations and deaths.”

Transcript:

QUESTION: This begins President Bush’s final year in the White House. What would you say are his most important goals, his priorities, the things on his must-do list before he leaves the White House?

PERINO: Well, there’s a few things that we need to do with Congress on. There’s — while we were able to achieve some things last year, there’s a lot of unfinished business.

So in regards to working with Congress, one of the first things that they need to do when they return is to pass and permanently establish the intelligence community reforms for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the FISA bill, that will make sure that we keep that intelligence gap closed, that we can surveil as appropriate.

We’ll also need to move forward on, hopefully, the No Child Left Behind reauthorization. It does not have to be reauthorized. It remains the law of the land through 2012. But we have this opportunity to strengthen the law now, and we’d like to work with Congress to get that done.

In the last four months, when the president has asked Congress to move forward on housing legislation in order to help stabilize that market and to help homeowners who are having some difficulty, we’ve only passed one of the pieces of legislation the president asked for. There are about four additional pieces of legislation they could move forward on, including modernizing the Federal Housing Administration.

In addition to that, we have free trade agreements that are on the table, including South Korea, Colombia and Peru. I’m getting that one right? I think I might be missing one.

And in addition to that, we have many outstanding nominations that need to be confirmed, both judicial and also throughout the government. And it really is unfortunate that Congress has not moved forward on its obligation to have hearings and to hold votes, because the president has nominated very good people.