Holding Out
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

In the middle of a global war on terror and a war in Iraq, one would think the Senate would appreciate the importance of keeping the Pentagon fully staffed at the top. You would think wrong. At least one senator, Carl Levin of Michigan, has developed a habit of blocking key nominations by placing “holds” on them, a procedural ploy that allows a lone senator to throw a wrench in the confirmation works.
The mischief hits right at the top of the Pentagon. Gordon England was named on April 7 to succeed Paul Wolfowitz as the deputy secretary of defense, the Pentagon’s second-ranking position. It is now November 25 and Mr. England, whom the Senate has previously confirmed as secretary of the Navy and deputy secretary of homeland security, is still awaiting a vote. Senator Levin has not deigned to make public the reasons for the hold but has indicated that he does not object to Mr. England serving in an “acting” capacity as he does now, and would not be bothered by a recess appointment, which currently seems the most likely route for Mr. England.
The fig leaf for the hold on Mr. England appears to be a Senate Armed Services Committee rule – not a “law” or “regulation,” but more of a “tradition” – that former defense contractors like Mr. England who have defined-benefit pensions from their former employers should purchase insurance on the value of those pensions. In theory this keeps Pentagon officials from being governed by a desire to coddle their former employers to protect their pensions. In practice, it provides a convenient excuse for a senator who wants to obstruct a wartime president.
The current defense undersecretary for policy, Eric Edelman, occupies the number three slot by virtue of a recess appointment after Mr. Levin placed a hold on his confirmation. Ditto for Peter Flory, now the assistant secretary for international security policy no thanks to the Senate. Both seem to have been embroiled in feuds over the release of documents related to prewar intelligence. The nominee to be assistant secretary for public affairs, Dorrance Smith, is on hold as well. He published an article in the Wall Street Journal in April suggesting that Al Jazeera may have ties to Al Qaeda.
Mr. Levin isn’t the only culprit. Senators Lott and Snowe, both Republicans, also placed holds on Mr. England’s nomination, citing concerns over his role in the Base Realignment and Closure commission’s treatment of shipbuilding facilities in Mississippi and Maine, although Senator Lott recently lifted his hold after a meeting with Mr. England. Up to a dozen Democrats are also holding the nomination of C. Boyden Gray to be America’s ambassador to the European Union in Brussels.
In the case of Mr. Gray the ire seems to have been brought about by his chairing the Committee for Justice, a conservative legal group that, in 2003, ran television spots accusing senators of anti-Catholic bias for blocking several of President Bush’s judicial nominees who were Catholics. One of those senators, Richard Durbin, lifted his hold only last week after gaining from Mr. Gray an apology for having aired the ads.
Senators Levin, Lott, and Snowe are acting as if they are indifferent to the fact that America is in the middle of a war. It’s one thing to object to that war or raise questions about how it is being conducted, quite another to thwart the will of the voters who returned Mr. Bush to office in 2004, which is what these senators are doing when they obstruct the president’s conduct of the war through back-room parliamentary shenanigans designed to protect their parochial or ideological interests.