Bush Bypasses Senate to Install Edelman

ABC News
Bush Bypasses Senate to Install Edelman
President Bypasses Senate to Install Eric S. Edelman As Top Policy Aide to Rumsfeld
The Associated Press

Aug. 9, 2005 - President Bush for the second time in a week used a constitutional power to bypass the Senate and fill a senior Pentagon post with an official whose nomination was stalled in the Senate.

The White House announced on Tuesday that Bush named Eric S. Edelman to be undersecretary of defense for policy, the chief policy adviser to the secretary of defense. Edelman replaces Douglas J. Feith, whose battles with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., over the release of documents related to Iraq stalled Edelman's nomination.

Edelman is a career foreign service officer. He served as ambassador to Turkey from July 2003 to June 2005 and he was a national security assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney from February 2001 to June 2003.


Edelman's nomination to replace Feith was sent to the Senate on May 16.

The Constitution gives the president the authority to put an official in a position without waiting for Senate confirmation when Congress is in recess. The official then can serve until the end of the current Congress, which in this case is January 2007.

Last week Bush approved a recess appointment for Peter Flory to be assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, a post that had not been filled by a Senate-confirmed official since J.D. Crouch left in 2004.

On Aug. 1 Bush used the same power to install John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.

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