Like a chicken with its head sliced off, Utah's junior senator is charging in opposition to President Barack Obama's presidential nominations. Mike Lee has vowed to oppose every nominee that Obama presents before the U.S. Senate for approval.
Lee is angry that the president has bypassed accepted Senate custom by appointing nominees when the Senate is in "pro forma" sessions three days apart to stop presidents from appointing nominees that the Senate has blocked. What this means is that Republicans in the Senate are using filibusters to prevent Obama from getting his nominees through.
This is all a technical and legal argument. It needs to be worked out either between the opposing sides -- Democrats and Republicans -- or through the courts. And that latter option will likely come soon. Republicans are challenging Obama's recent appointments.
What isn't a good idea is Lee's tantrum charge. Utah's junior senator has already been the sole member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to oppose less controversial appointments that have Republican support. Lee claims that principle is the catalyst behind his very narrow resolutions of opposition. But he's wrong.
Instead Lee is merely an enabler of the partisan dysfunction that infects Washington D.C. today. He's throwing his tantrum because President Obama and the Democrats won't do things in exactly the ideological way that he desires.
Fortunately, Senate Republicans aren't willing to follow Lee in picking up their toys and stalking off to the sides of the Senate chambers. While there is widespread anger among Republicans at Obama's failure to respect recess appointment rules, they have not joined Lee.
The senator who owes his place in the Senate to a very conservative 2010 Utah state convention may be pleasing the delegates who voted for him then, but the rest of us would prefer he play nice with others.
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