We DO have public confirmation hearings for those positions. It’s just that no one was paying attention to the hearings for what is, in essence, a minor political appointment.

Can anyone here name the Director of the EPA? (Without looking it up.)

Same level of government. Same confirmation hearings.

Anyone know the name of the American ambassador to France? They have to go through Senate confirmation hearings, as well. They technically outrank the Undersecretary of an Executive Department, but no one pays attention to them.

If it weren’t for how bad a foulup this was, I’ll bet that not 1/4 of you would have known Brown’s name.

wow.  what’s frightening, is that i practice environmental and land use law, and i couldn’t name the head of the EPA!!

to be fair, my practice rarely involves federal law (and has never involved contacting the head of the EPA).  at least i know that Sheehan is the acting commissioner of the NY DEC, and i know my region’s DEC permit administrator and regional director ;)

That’s the point though, Drum: the foulup was bad and it SHOULDN’T be a minor appointment.  HLS is supposed to be our non-military defense and protection both in times of disaster and terrorism.  Without competent leadership...we’re all going to be living in one big New Orleans if our locals aren’t up to snuff.

Well, I mean I’m not.  I gots my guns and water.  :)

I didn’t know it was a full Congressional confirmation thing.  Perhaps if the media was less interested in attacking Bush based on idiots like Moore’s nonsense and maybe, oh, I dunno, fucking reported on the wheres and whos of this stuff someone might have noticed earlier that Brown padded his already weak resume and maybe someone decent could have had the job.

Any Department Secretary, UnderSecretary, Ambassador and Federal Judge requires a full vote of the Senate. It may be a pro forma vote, but a vote takes place nevertheless.

The point at which the Senate must approve comes at where it is the Executive Branch that does the hiring, rather than the career bureaucracy promoting from within.

Michael Brown was confirmed by the (majority Democrat) U.S. Senate on August 1st, 2002, by unanimous consent (no request for a roll call vote).

There were public committee hearings, before the Committee on Governmental Affairs, chaired by Senator Lieberman (D-CT): <a href="http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_senate_hearings&docid=f:81311.wais">full transcript</a>.  No one had anything uncomplimentary to say to or about him.  Most of the senators on the committee didn’t bother to show up.

Oops…

should read: full transcript

Thank you, sir, but your link is badly fractured. The 2001-2003 was run by the Democrats thanks to newly-elected Senator Jim Jeffords (VT), who was elected as a Republican, but then switched to Democrat.

The Republicans and Democrats had just worked out a scheme of leadership wherein chairmanships of the various committees would be evenly shared in the 50-49-1 Senate, because the chairmanships would have been decided by whoever had the VP’s seat. Jeffords shift gave the Dems that one-seat advantage, and they wasted no time in throwing out any shared leaderships plans.

So much for “bilateral”. It was those games that caused the people to remove the tie in favor of the Republicans (51-48-1 during ‘03-’05 and it’s currently 55-44-1 for the ‘05-’07 Congress).