Kent Conrad, Democratic Senator of North Dakota: Deficit Hawk, Pork Hound.

See also, Kit Bond, Republican Senator of Missouri.

Or maybe Bond isn’t.  But there always exists that thing, the bi-partisan Deficit Hawk Pork Hound Caucus.

Bond’s hold was meant to apply pressure on the government to approve a proposed federal office building in downtown Kansas City, Mo. In the end, Bond voted for Johnson’s nomination.

As for the politics of “The Holds” — I suppose you can say that Bond had his rather paroachial and tedious reasons.  The obnoxious politics of the moment brings us one final beating of the hold and/or filibuster of a conventional appointee in the form of a 60 to 40 Labor nominee.

So Richard Shelby announces the new holding of everyone.  And he is a member of the bi-partisan deficit hawk pork hound cacus.  Yes, yes, it’s not too hard to look back to the Bush administration and see him bluster about the Hold ups of a bunch fewer Bush appointees.  Up and Down Vote, and all that.

The one thing I can say is that there is a satisfactory item of small d democracy in Harry Reid’s throw over to Obama to push up a mass of recess appointments.  As you may or may not recall, Bush recess appointed a few holds.  And therein it is worthwhile to point the name of one of the major figures the Democrats were holding up: John Bolton for the U.N. — whose history is one of not believing in the U.N.  Compare that with the Labor nominee just held up and I suppose we see the ideological fissures of the matter.
So it was there that the 51 to 49 Democratic Senate held very brief Christmas break Senate sessions presided over by Jim Webb, Freshman duty from nearest state.

That’s where this item of small d democracy comes in.  The Republican Party can’t break the recess appointees, because they are in the Senate minority.  Never mind the Village Voice headline after Brown’s victory and the ensuing free for all of news sources stating the Democrats lost the majority.  (This headline was only slightly tongue in cheek as a parody, as some news sites actually did say the majority was lost.)

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