I goofed again, what a humbling thread. The Senate was in a pro forma session to prevent Obama from making any recess appointments.
The
pro forma session is arguably a sham, but it was invented by the Senate Democrats to prevent George W. Bush from making recess appointments, by Harry Reid and his underlings including Barack Obama. The media won't call attention to Obama's hypocrisy in overriding the recess now.
Of course all these recess appointments are contrary to the spirit of the Constitution--in the earlier periods of our history Congress was on recess the bulk of the year. This was intended to fill vacancies that occurred after Congress had left town, not to insert someone who couldn't win confirmation normally.