Is it an abuse of power to fight the Senatorial "hold"?

So who is this man, and why should we care? His name is Peter Cyril Wyche Flory, and yesterday President Bush recess appointed him (which appears to be the correct term, awkward though it is) to the position of Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy.

Is this yet another example of a manipulative Bush thwarting the will of the Senate, of an abuse of power so heinous as to call into question the legitimacy of our democracy? Of course not: instead, it helps illustrate the partisan gridlock in the Congress, a situation which has grown so dire that Bush must make extraordinary efforts to keep things running.

The Senate did not filibuster, or explicitly threaten to filibuster, Flory's nomination to the position. Nor in fact does it appear that significant objections were raised about his fitness for the position. Instead, it seems that he was caught in the crossfire between Senator Carl Levin and Undersecretary Douglas Feith, Flory's superior at the DoD:

Flory was first nominated to the post on June 1, 2004, but the nomination was blocked by Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a dispute over release of intelligence-related documents that Levin sought from Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy.

You may well ask how a single Senator can hold up a nomination for more than a year without resorting to a tactic such as the filibuster. n the fancy terminology of the Senate, it's called a hold, an unofficial procedure whereby one Senator--one Senator--can simply say that they don't want a measure to go ahead. It's usually a signal that someone is willing to put up a strenuous fight over a bill or nomination; but in this case it appears that its use was a ploy for Levin to try to gain some leverage against Feith...never mind that a third party (indeed, the first party in this case) got run over, and that an important national security position remained vacant for more than a year.

When you talk about recess appointments, John Bolton, and Bush's supposed abuse of power, remember poor Peter Flory, and maybe consider sending him a fruit basket in congratulations.