Bloodless Coup

Tim Fernholz Makes the Case for Appointing Sen. Gregg

And I think it's a pretty good case. The general rule in politics is that incumbents are reelected at higher rates than non-incumbents, and this removes a guy from high office less than 2 years before the next election for his seat. And what do the Democrats lose? Having a fierce partisan at Commerce. But are there strict partisan disagreements about the direction of ... NOAA? Not to the best of my knowledge, no. Given that this is about who runs NOAA and the Patent Office, the brouhaha over it all seems much ado about rather little.