White House touts Commerce pick's Boeing experience

Conservative critics of the National Labor Relations Board's lawsuit against Boeing hammered President Obama Tuesday for picking a Commerce secretary who sits on the company's board of directors, but the White House said that service is part of what makes him qualified for the job.

NLRB critics have argued the panel's lawsuit against Boeing should be dropped since Obama has tapped businessman John Bryson to be the next Commerce secretary. Bryson, 67, is a member of the Boeing board of directors.

But White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters Tuesday that Bryson's tenure on the Boeing board was apart of the "diversity of his experience" that appealed to the president.

"He served on the board at Boeing. He served on — he serves on the board at Disney," Carney said. "These are obviously companies that do a lot of international business."

Carney said that Bryson's experience at those companies gave him an an "understanding of the intersection between government and business, which is very useful given his experience in government.

"And then obviously throwing in his work with nonprofits, it’s really an impressive package," he said. "And that’s what drove the President’s decision."

Critics of the lawsuit, in which the NLRB alleges Boeing to have retaliated against labor strikes by building a new plant in South Carolina, disagreed Tuesday. The conservative Workforce Fairness Institute said that Obama should decide if Boeing is a lawful company or not, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) promised the suit would come up in Bryson's confirmation hearings. 

The lawsuit was triggered when Boeing, which has been building 787 airplanes at its unionized plant near Seattle, announced plans to open a plant to build the planes in South Carolina.