Frank Lockwood at the Bible Belt Blogger seems to think Surgeon General appointee Dr. James Holsinger is preparing for a recess appointment. Lockwood reports that Holsinger has just resigned from the board of trustees of Asbury Seminary in Wilmore, Ky, and has mentioned the recess appointment plans to others.
Holsinger’s nomination, opposed by several leading Democrats, has stalled in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. But Holsinger is telling people the president plans to appoint him to the post anyway once the Congress goes into its holiday recess, a well-connected Wilmore source says.
Jim Burroway at the Box Turtle Bulletin has more.
Asbury Seminary has been deeply conflicted in the past year following the dismissal of the school’s president by the trustees. There’s been a lot of fall-out, including the loss of other trustees. I’m assuming, though, that Holsinger’s resignation is related to his nomination for surgeon general, as Lockwood implies. As a former United Methodist and an Asbury Seminary Alum, I’ve been deeply disturbed by Holsinger’s comments re: homosexuality in the U.M. church’s debates on the ordination and members of LGBT persons. He’s been backpeddling, but it’s hard to forget how he used his professional medical standing to promote intolerance in the ugly political wrangling of the UMC.
While it is appropriate to note the ambiguities in the situation, I think there is a good chance that we are seeing Dr. Holsinger hoisted by the same arrogant petard that afflicted his relationship to that hospital foundation: An ill-founded attitude of believing that the fix is in, that whatever the legal or procedural situation is, the people who are really in charge have decided to go ahead with something that pleases him. Whether he thinks he is one of those people is a good question, I’d come down on the ‘yes’ side. There is a certain laziness in all this.
I would suggest that there are procedural norms for leaving a board to take a prestigious governmental position. What ever one may think of the likelihood of the outcome of the nomination, it is presumptuous to make a public announcement of actions to be taken upon its success until that success happens. One does notify one’s fellow board members that the matter is a serious possibility. Most board members serve for limited terms so there is usually a Nominating Committee that might quietly start looking into possible replacements. This norm has been violated. It is particularly strange to see this happen since promotion to a more prestigious position is absolutely the best excuse for leaving an otherwise troubled board.
All of this gets funnier in that the Senate’s Majority Leader has decided to hold pro forma sessions through the holidays to block recess appointments of candidates the Senate has already found distasteful. That the ‘in charge’ folks in the White House have brought forth this particular ‘slip twixt cup and lip’ by neglecting their legal duties is a particularly delicious irony. Senator Reid has a valid concern in his rationale for avoiding a formal recess. That Dr. Holsinger might get to ‘twist in the wind’ for a while hardly seems unjust.
Exactly because the Congress and the Methodist Church have formal and public commitments to democratic processes which were violated in these cases, we are given yet another example of how anti-gay slander is intimately connected to the expectation that anti-democratic processes will benefit the individuals who engage in anti-gay advocacy.
I added, ‘not particularly methodist’ because of the historic Methodist emphasis on humility. If we were talking about Presbyterians I would have gone for, ‘not all that decent and in order’.
and that did not work, live and learn…
NOT going to happen!! Dems are keeping a pro-forma session during the holidays, therefore BLOCKING any recess appointments. They said they’ll never let him become surgeon general, ever!! score one for the democrats! This guy is one of those crackpot christians!