Posted on 09/19/2008 8:01:28 PM PDT by kellynla
AT A RALLY in Iowa on Thursday, John McCain said that Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), should be fired. "Mismanagement and greed became the operating standard while regulators were asleep at the switch," McCain said. "The Chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the President and has betrayed the public's trust. If I were President today, I would fire him."
Within hours, McCain's statement came under fire. His critics focused less on his assignment of blame than on his proposed remedy: as ABC's Jake Tapper put it, "the president does not have the power to fire the SEC chairman." The regular chorus of McCain critics quickly echoed the refrain. Citing Tapper, a blogger for The Atlantic wrote that although the president could pressure the SEC chairman to quit, he "still couldn't 'fire' him."
Keith Olbermann went still further, accusing McCain of proposing an outright violation of Constitution. Responding to McCain's statement, Professor Olbermann lectured,
Maybe [Palin] could brief Senator McCain on constitutional law ... the president appoints the members of independent agency commissions, like the FCC and the SEC, then they are confirmed. But once he has appointed them to those commissions, he cannot simply fire them outright. That is what the Supreme Court said in 1935, having ruled that President Roosevelt could not dump a conservative member of the Federal Trade Commission. Members of the commission can always be fired for cause, like gross neglect to a malfeasance, but not just because the president disagrees with the way they vote or run their agencies.
These criticisms miss the mark. Indeed, they're as wrongheaded as they are vehement.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
Keith Olbermann was wrong???
Wow now thats a shocker! /sarc
The Obamatons will either ignore this, or whip themselves into a frenzy and try and cite some 1897 case in support of...
Why stop with Cox. He is no worse than the other four commissioners, and he’s got a whole lot more upstairs than some of them.
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