John Boehner offers a comparably light rebuke of President Obama

While congress was recessing President Obama appointed three people to the National Labor Relations Board and appointed Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The whole separation of powers thing that Montesquieu wrote about and America subsequently adopted is what has people upset about President Obama's appointees. Most of the time when a president picks someone to do something congress gets to vet that person and ok or disallow the appointment. This way the President doesn't get to install unelected leaders to hang on to their posts after he has left office.

I'm not going to say that President Obama has done some political chicanery here. I'm sure that what will happen is that the Republicans will gather enough fury to make this an issue and then President Obama will go out on the campaign and point this out to Republican obstructionism and win some points. But, the National labor Relations Board is something that deals a lot with unions. Republicans were going to block anyone that President Obama appointed to it, even if it were a janitor, unless of course the janitor was non-unionized. Also, the Dodd-Frank law demands that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have a head. Since congress has been unwilling to approve President Obama's appointee, congress in some sense is acting against the spirit of the law. If you don't like the law, rewrite it. You're congress.

Some of the Republican Presidential candidates have had some strong words about President Obama's usage of congressional recess to appoint the people to their positions.

Ron Paul has called for the president to be taken to task for his "clear disregard of the constitution".

Newt Gingrich calls President Obama an "imperial president" and urges congress to defund the National Labor Relations Board.

Mitt Romney has an even scathier scathing word for President Obama, "President Obama has wasted no time in returning to one of the top items on his agenda: doling out favors to his big labor political allies and giving them a dangerous level of power over businesses and workers". Ouch! Cronyism and corruption. Bam.

On the other hand John Boehner has offered a bland criticism of the president's actions saying, "This action goes beyond the President’s authority, and I expect the courts will find the appointment to be illegitimate". Obviously the recess was not long enough because Mr. Boehner seems to be exhausted from all the smackdown he has been receiving from House Republicans. Or its possible that the short vacation from those meanies has allowed him to return to a more demure and moderate self. Either way I'd expect some more venom from the mouth of John Boehner in the coming days, even if it is written by his Tea Party puppeteers.