And the Hits Keep Coming

Obama's new commerce nominee, Republican Senator Judd Gregg, voted to abolish to Commerce Department in 1995:

President Obama's new candidate to run the Commerce Department voted in favor of abolishing the agency as a member of the Budget Committee and on the Senate floor in 1995.

…Gregg also fought President Bill Clinton's efforts to increase funding for the Commerce Department to administer the 2000 census. Indeed, Gregg's commitment to basic functions of the department has been questioned at times.

"He was generally pretty harsh on them and not really interested in their programs, especially the commerce side of things," said a Democratic appropriations aide.

…It is not unprecedented for a lawmaker who supported abolishing a Cabinet department to take its helm. In 2001, the recently defeated Sen. Spencer Abraham, R﷓Mich., was confirmed to run the Energy Department even though he had once cosponsored legislation to eliminate it.

And that worked out just great, now, didn't it?

In a possible harbinger of Things to Come (That Are Eerily Reminiscent of Precisely the Fox-in-the-Henhouse Situation That Existed in the Bush Administration's Energy Department), David Sirota assesses the Gregg nomination with a post titled: "Radical Free Trader to Head Government's Trade Enforcement Apparatus." Superb.