Here's the text of the letter:

The President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

From the beginning of your administration, you have made an admirable commitment to transparency and open government. You showed the strength of your commitment by sending a memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies within a week of your inauguration, stating: "My administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use."

As you know, there has been much discussion about your decisions to create and assign apparently significant policy-making responsibilities to White House and other executive positions; many of the persons filling these positions have come to be referred to in the media and even within your administration as policy "czars." I heard firsthand about this issue on several occasions from my constituents in recent town hall meetings in Wisconsin.

The Constitution gives the Senate the duty to oversee the appointment of Executive officers through the Appointments Clause in Article II, section 2. The Appointments Clause states that the President "shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise proved for, and which shall be established by law." This clause is an important part of the constitutional scheme of separation of powers, empowering the Senate to weigh in on the appropriateness of significant appointments and assisting in its oversight of the Executive Branch.

As a member of the Senate with the duty to oversee executive appointments and as the Chairman of the Senate Constitution Subcommittee, I respectfully urge you to disclose as much information as you can about these policy advisors and "czars." Specifically, I ask that you identify these individuals' roles and responsibilities, and provide the judgment(s) of your legal advisors as to whether and how these positions are consistent with the Appointments Clause. I hope that this information will help address some of the concerns that have been raised about new positions in the White House and elsewhere in the Executive Branch, and will inform any hearing that the Subcommittee holds on this topic.

Thank you for considering my views on this important matter. I very much appreciate your commitment to transparency and open government and look forward to your prompt response.

Sincerely,

Russell D. Feingold
United States Senator

#3 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2009-09-24 04:21 PM | Reply | Flag: 9 minutes, first deflection

If you don't think the equivalent of saying "Reagan did it too" isn't a deflection, then "gross ignorance" would be an understatement in your case. More like willful, blatant retardation.

Where did you get that info, Manypantspisser? Wikipedia?

Yeah, Feingold and Byrd are only concerned about czars now because Obama is a democrat. You guys are hilarious.

"If it isn't his race, what is it?"

Maybe he has given more power to the czars. How would anyone know when prominent members of his own party needs to ask for more information about them?

#21 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2009-09-24 05:00 PM | Reply | Flag:

Deflections are now mere citations to "precedent?" That would have been nice to know during the Bush years when every lefty on this site whined about "Clinton deflections."

"Clinton got a blowjob" is a deflection, Joe. (Unless the topic is "Presidential blowjobs.") "Reagan also had czars" is relevant to the matter at hand."

I wasn't only referring to Clinton getting blowjobs. Clinton was blamed for the economy and for 9/11 as well, and it was always a "deflection" even though the topic was the economy or 9/11.

"There's an extensively footnoted Wikipedia piece"

And yet, none of the numbers everyone is pulling from that piece are footnoted. The author simply put them there with no citations.

Perhaps Cock Starvis is okay with unprovable wikipedia evidence, but most people with brains are not.

"Actually, Joe, if you took a look at the Wikipedia article you'd find it's extensively footnoted"

Again - none of those footnotes are linked up from the information you're citing. You are aware that wikipedia authors put links to their footnotes after the corresponding text they are citing?

Which doesn't make sense, if you think about it. Cock Starvis should be ripping Feingold for being duped by the media hype over "czars."

Again - if the concern over czars is nothing more than being duped by media hype, then why is Feingold's concern a legitimate one?