Patterico's Pontifications

12/8/2021

Saule Omarova Nomination for Comptroller Withdrawn, Media Fumes

Filed under: General — JVW @ 1:37 pm



[guest post by JVW]

Yesterday afternoon, Saule Omarova asked the Biden White House to withdraw her nomination as head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, to which President Biden had tabbed her back in September, but her nomination had been controversial owing to some — shall we say — idiosyncratic views about the efficacy of certain economic policies of the former Soviet Union. When the White House made the formal nomination — in the immediate aftermath of the Democrats’ disastrous showing in the 2019 elections — they failed to allay fears that she would be a firm advocate for central planning even among Senate Democrats, and subsequently five Democrat Senators announced that they could not support her, thus bringing her candidacy to a screeching stop.

The failure of a high-profile Biden nominee, owing to her ability to assuage moderate Democrats that she isn’t merely a Kazakhstani-born version of Elizabeth Warren, is to our feeble and incurious media naturally the fault of the GOP. David Harsanyi at NRO catches the media unsurprisingly prevaricating about why the Omarova nomination failed:

[. . .] NPR claimed in a tweet that Omarova withdrew her nomination “after facing personal attacks about being born in the former Soviet Union.” The New York Times says that “lobbyists and Republicans painted her as a communist because she was born in the Soviet Union.”

These are lies. And neither outlet provides a single quote to back the assertion that Senate Republicans had personally attacked the Cornell professor over being “born in the Soviet Union.” Perhaps some of this confusion hinges on the fact that many in the media have tried to create the impression that Omarova is some kind of political refugee who escaped Soviet tyranny to come to the United States. That too was untrue, as it was happenstance that the exchange student found herself stranded in Wisconsin when the Soviet Union fell. She never defected.

Despite the claims of bozos like Dana Milbank, the media has in no way, shape, or form been harder on the Biden Administration than they were on the Trump Administration. And, in what should be an obvious corollary, the GOP opposition has not really behaved more viciously, partisanly, or unreasonably than Democrats did four years ago. Joe Biden, who appears to be mostly subcontracting his administration’s agenda out to the Bernard Sanders wing of the party, could have chosen among dozens — probably hundreds — of qualified center-left Democrats for this position. Why he saw the need to pick a law school academic (albeit one who had worked in private practice and in prior administrations) prone to musing about how for all of its gulags at least the USSR didn’t have a gender pay gap and flirting with the idea that perhaps the Federal Reserve should simply take over all bank deposits in the U.S. is only a mystery if you let yourself believe that he is truly making the decisions that go out under his name. Hopefully now Team Biden has determined that they have done as much as they can or should to placate the anti-capitalists in their party, and they can focus on being the centrist Democrats they claimed to be back in 2020.

– JVW

26 Responses to “Saule Omarova Nomination for Comptroller Withdrawn, Media Fumes”

  1. Fun fact: one of the former heads of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is a boyhood friend of mine.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  2. Charlie Cooke also wonders what the hell Biden was thinking in nominating Prof. Omarova.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  3. maybe now biden can nominate john brennan

    JF (e1156d)

  4. I see these Biden nominees as responding to the demands of the left, with the knowledge they couldn’t get confirmed, just to show the left that their favorites don’t have political support.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  5. Democrats have 4 seat majority in the house. The squad has 5 members by themselves. Progressive caucus has 80. The left had biden foisted on them using the pandemic to stop bernie sanders by playing games in the 2020 primaries. If as likely the republicans take the house in 2022 it will be biden supporters in swing districts who lose not the squad and progressives in safe blue districts. Also democrats are gerrymandering in blue states where they can to put republican voters in as few districts as possible though many blue states have commissions not legislatures drawing the lines. If democrat moderates are crushed in 2022 AOC and the squad along with other progressives will send pelosi and dnc leadership out the door. They will then wait for republicans who evil and self destructive to mess up voter fed up puts democrats back in power. The left will make sure they never lose an election again. Joe biden is protecting republicans from AOC’s re-education camps even though being self destructive they hate him.

    asset (1e8bc8)

  6. Question if democrats win majority votes in wisconsin, arizona, georgia, michigan or other state controlled by republican legislature and they give the electoral vote to the loser do you think the democrat party and deep state will say well you got us again congratulations! Or start a revolution and civil war?

    asset (1e8bc8)

  7. Is man go to Politburo say I have no potato. Politburo say we glad to hear that. Man say how so comrades? Politburo say we not sure we have all potato. Now we know. Then they send man to gulag. Very sad.

    nk (1d9030)

  8. Marxist economist is an oxymoron.

    You can detect them by their terms. Like “excess profit” which should be read in the same vein as your boss talking about your “excess take-home pay.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  9. I see these Biden nominees as responding to the demands of the left, with the knowledge they couldn’t get confirmed, just to show the left that their favorites don’t have political support.

    But eventually we will get their next-favorites.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  10. prone to musing about how for all of its gulags at least the USSR didn’t have a gender pay gap

    Hey! Why are they tearing down all those Confederate monuments? Despite some hardships, at least slavery didn’t have any gender pay gaps.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  11. Senate poised to pass resolution to nullify Biden vaccine mandate

    While I’m not sure how this blocks an OSHA regulation, it should. Single-house vetoes were part and parcel of the legislation that set up OSHA, and most of the Nixon-era regulatory agencies. They were struck down in 1983 (INS v Chadha), and every word the dissenters uttered has proven true.

    Justice White, dissenting, argued that
    (1) the legislative veto power is absolutely necessary to modern government, as exemplified by the legislative veto powers granted in the War Powers Act of 1973.
    (2) The absence of constitutional provisions for alternate methods of action does not imply their prohibition by the Constitution, and the Court has consistently read the Constitution to respond to contemporary needs with flexibility.
    (3) The legislative veto power does not involve the ability of Congress to enact new legislation without bicameral consensus or presentation to the president, but instead involves the ability of Congress to veto suggestions by the executive, a power that both houses of Congress already possess.
    (4) The Court has allowed Congress to delegate authority to executive agencies; lawmaking does not always require bicameralism or presentation.
    (5) The bicameralism and presentation provisions of the Constitution serve to ensure that no departure from the status quo takes place without consensus from both houses of Congress and the President or by a super-majority vote of both houses of Congress. In this case, the deportation of Chadha is the status quo situation, and the veto by House of Representatives of an alternative suggestion of the executive branch is reasonable given the purposes of bicameralism and the Presentment Clause.

    Justice Rehnquist, in a dissent joined by White, argued that it is unlikely that Congress would have promulgated § 244(a)(1) without the corresponding provisions of §§ 244(c)(1–2). Therefore, the provisions are not severable from one another, and holding one unconstitutional requires invalidating the other.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  12. It’s “Saule” with an “au”, BTW. The KGB must have have created a perfect legend for her to have first been placed at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in the Reagan years, and then to pass FBI vetting both during the GWB administration and now.

    [Thanks. Corrections made. – JVW]

    nk (1d9030)

  13. ‘Charlie Cooke also wonders what the hell Biden was thinking in nominating Prof. Omarova.’

    He wasn’t. This was staff work. Better still, this pretty much sums it up:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zQ55S-DJsM

    “Number Three!”

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  14. This was staff work.

    Getting their orders directly from Comintern Central.

    nk (1d9030)

  15. Obama’s grandfather was a Muslim Communist, too.

    nk (1d9030)

  16. Where you say, “owing to her ability to assuage moderate Democrats…”
    don’t you mean “inability to assuage?” She lost the nomination by losing Dem’s, the R’s had nothing really to do with it.

    TW2020 (824a6b)

  17. Question for lawyers on burned Christmas tree in moderation- not sure why.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  18. Is Fox News Corporation, Rockefeller Center [their 1211 6th HQ is part of the complex] and the owners there of, liable in any way for a flammable artificial holiday decoration [the Christmas tree that went up in flames along 6th Avenue] under the fire/safety codes/laws of NYC or NY State????

    FWIW, if memory serves, the annual natural tree at 30 Rock is sprayed w/a fire suppressant before being decorated and lit by the ice rink.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  19. Figured out the word that was catching in moderation– ‘fire re—-dant’]. Sorry.

    Genuine question for you lawyers though.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  20. The KGB must have have created a perfect legend for her to have first been placed at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in the Reagan years

    Considering that university is commie central and has been for a long time, they knew they were simply embedding her with her ideological fellow travelers.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  21. Democrat corporate establishment who call themselves moderates are running scared of 2022 election. The progressive reside in deep blue districts.

    asset (732ff9)

  22. Obama’s grandfather was a Muslim Communist, too.

    His father was tossed out of Kenyatta’s party for being too far left.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  23. The republicans have no chance in 2022, with candidates like Dr. Oz they will get the snot beat out of them.

    mg (8cbc69)

  24. The republicans have no chance in 2022, with candidates like Dr. Oz they will get the snot beat out of them.

    Pretty sure there are some primaries.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  25. Who wouldn’t vote for a guy whose middle name is Genghis?

    nk (1d9030)

  26. 15. nk (1d9030) — 12/8/2021 @ 5:18 pm

    Obama’s grandfather was a Muslim Communist, too.

    Wasn;t that his father? (although he was;t strictly a Communist, just a poseur) Barack Obama;s grandfather Onaango converted to Christianity, as part the deal to attend a missionary school. But after World War I, in which is he was part of the British army working on roads in Tanganyika and other parts of German East Africa. He converted to Islam after spending some time in Zanzibar. That’s when he (the grandfather) added the name Hussein to his name.

    Barack Obama’s father Baraka, originally raised as a Muslim, whose names was changed to Barack when he, too, was enrolled in a missionary school and converted to Christianity, was whatever religion was convenient (he had to be a Muslim to marry more than one woman at a time) and was really an atheist. He was a bigamist several times over. His first marriage, in 1957, was under Luo customary law.

    Even his date of birth is unclear, but it was probably 1936.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)


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