Meaningless advise and conscent

Talking Points Memo has a video clip up of Karl Rove being interviewed about the fired U.S. Attorneys. When they get to questions about the provision sneaked into the Patriot Act allowing the Prez to appoint successors without Senate confirmation, Rove says (paraphrasing), "No, no. We plan to submit all the names to the Senate for confirmation. We just didn't like the former practice of having judges make the appointments if the Senate hadn't confirmed a nominee within 60 days."

Now, just think about this for a minute. Submitting the names to the Senate for confirmation does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING unless the Senate has the right to prevent the nominee from taking office by refusing to consent to the appointment. As things stand now, they don't. If the Senate votes not to confirm, Bush just leaves the guy in office under the present law. So, Senate confirmation is a meaningless exercise.

Rove is just doing a smoke screen, as usual.