Today, President Barack Obama checked off another first for an American president: He made a recess appointment when Congress wasn’t in recess. It may sound hard to do, but after healing the planet and stopping the rise of the seas, this one was easy.

While the Constitution gives the president the authority to fill executive branch vacancies when the Senate is in recess, a Justice Department opinion in 1993 implied that a recess of more than three days was needed before the president could exercise the power, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. No such appointments have been made during recesses of fewer than 10 days over the last 20 years, the service said in a December report.

But there is precedent for appointments made during recesses of fewer than three days — President Theodore Roosevelt made more than 160 recess appointments during a Senate break of less than a day in 1903.

Obama decided to push the legal envelope to get Cordray in place.

If you or I were to “push the legal envelope” it’d be called “breaking the law” and we’d find ourselves making license plates.

Cue the “if Bush had done it” musings. Here’s the Heritage Foundation’s take on it.  Hilariously, the Obama Department of Justice was against this before they were for it.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: And the recess appointment power doesn’t work why?

MR. KATYAL: The — the recess appointment power can work in — in a recess. I think our office has opined the recess has to be longer than 3 days. And — and so, it is potentially available to avert the future crisis that — that could — that could take place with respect to the board. If there are no other questions –

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Thank you, counsel.

A couple of other notes:

First, if these are the new rules (and Sen. Harry Reid said he’s all for it), then a Republican president will likely do this too—even if it’s just for the job of ambassador to the Maldives—just for the pure joy of watching the Democrats go into contortions. Once upon a time Democrats understood that there were certain lines you didn’t cross because one day the tables might be turned and you didn’t want be on the other side. That period is long past.

Second, if you thought it was amusing how the New York Times editorial page was for filibusters when Republicans were president, but how they were an affront to democracy when a Democrat was president, then there’s another one sure to be on the way. Predictably, because the Times likes Obama, they like this move. They refer to it as a recess appointment, but never note that the Senate is not in recess. Then there’s this:

Congressional Republicans are calling the appointment “unprecedented” and “illegitimate” — that is rich given that they are determined to use any and all tactics to thwart the bureau and the Dodd-Frank reform law that created it.

And why wouldn’t they? Is there any tactic beyond the pale whose end goal is a liberal aim? Nope, it’s only when Republicans use the legal methods at their disposal that the Times editorialists complain.