https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/0 ... nee-510811
Quote:
The White House on Thursday withdrew David Chipman's nomination to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms after resistance from Senate Democratic centrists imperiled his bid.
Chipman, currently an official at the gun control group Giffords, faced fierce opposition from all 50 Senate Republicans but also didn’t have the votes to be confirmed along party lines in the 50-50 Senate. Nonetheless, President Joe Biden blamed Republicans for the failure of the nomination even as he acknowledged that the White House knew the confirmation battle “wouldn’t be easy.”
“He would have been an exemplary Director of the ATF and would have redoubled its efforts to crack down on illegal firearms traffickers and help keep our communities safe from gun violence,” Biden said, praising Chipman for his work as an ATF agent as well as his advocacy on gun control. “Unfortunately, Republicans in Congress have made clear that they intend to use gun crime as a political talking point instead of taking serious steps to address it.”
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) had previously told the Biden administration and Senate Democrats that he was not supportive of the nominee. Other centrist Democratic senators, including Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, had also remained noncommittal on the pick. Chipman's failed nomination, the second major pick Biden has had to withdraw during his eight months in office, highlights Congress' continued paralysis on gun control after years of mostly failed efforts at bipartisan reform.
During his confirmation hearing, Senate Republicans pressed Chipman over a recent interview in which he said new gun owners who have no training should only bring their guns out "if the zombies start to appear." The nominee responded that the comments were “self-deprecating.”
The committee deadlocked on the nomination along party lines, which would have forced the Senate to vote to discharge him.
I really don't know what Biden was thinking with this one, his whole reputation has been Mr Bipartisanship, the guy that's going to try to work across the aisle, who fondly reminisces about the good old days when he could pall around with GOP senators, but then he picks a full blown anti gun activist with a problematic record who he knows full well no GOP senator could vote for, and even drew criticism from his own team. He has to know that his majority rests on a handful of red and purple state senators such as Manchin, Tester, and King who couldn't vote for this guy and keep their seats, so it makes absolutely no sense politically, regardless of what you happen to think of the gun issue. Of course he's blaming the GOP for his nominee going down, when he couldn't even convince his own party, it's just another move that makes him look weak and foolish. Just to be clear, nominating this particular person to head the ATF is like if a Republican president had nominated a paid NRA lobbyist for the position, something even Trump wasn't shameless enough to try, and he actually would have had the votes to make it happen.
_________________
“The totally convinced and the totally stupid have too much in common for the resemblance to be accidental.”
-- Robert Anton Wilson
09 Sep 2021, 10:23 pm
