ANOTHER CLASS ACT BY THE DECEPTIVE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION – AT 8:56 A.M. ET:  We judge presidents, in large measure, by those they appoint to high office.  Now the Obamans are trying to sneak around the Senate confirmation process by the recess appointment of a troubling nominee.  From Fox:

President Obama intends to bypass Congress and appoint Dr. Donald Berwick to head Medicare and Medicaid, the White House announced Tuesday -- filling the job while Congress is in recess to get around Republican opposition that threatened to derail Berwick's confirmation.

Berwick's supporters say he is the right man in the right place at the right time. But his opponents have lined up against him. They say that while he may be a the highly respected doctor, he is also an outspoken proponent of the British health care system, which they say is all wrong for Americans.

"This recess appointment is an insult to the American people," Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said Tuesday night. "Dr. Berwick is a self-professed supporter of rationing health care, and he won't even have to explain his views to the American people in a Congressional hearing."

It also turns out, according to the Washington Times, that Berwick has heavily inflated his resumé:

...Dr. Berwick hasn't seen a patient in years. And the two Harvard professor positions listed on his White House biography as well as another position as a senior scientist at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston are essentially "honorary professorships," which require two or three seminars or meetings a year, The Washington Times has learned.

In all, Dr. Berwick disclosed holding more than a dozen current positions on a government ethics filing, though one full-time paying job: his 40-hours-per-week position as the president and chief executive of the nonprofit Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), where he earned nearly $900,000 in salary, bonus and deferred compensation last year.

And...

"The yawning gap between what the White House says the nominee does, as opposed to what he actually does, should raise very serious questions to the [Senate] Finance Committee," said Dean Zerbe, former senior counsel and tax counsel on the committee for Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican.

COMMENT:  At least they don't claim he was a community organizer, the major qualification for the presidency.

But this episode, following many other appointments of ideologues, tell you what this administration is really about.

July 7, 2010