GOP senators' shifting standards - - flip-flops galore on judicial experience standard (WaPo)

SPIN METER: GOP senators' shifting standards

By HENRY C. JACKSON
The Associated Press
Wednesday, May 12, 2010; 9:32 AM

WASHINGTON -- So, Senator, how much does judicial experience matter when considering a Supreme Court nominee?

It depends on when you're asking.

Republicans now criticizing President Barack Obama's nominee, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, for her lack of judicial experience welcomed that same lack of credentials a few years ago, when a president of their own party nominated a non-judge for the high court.

In 2005, when then-President George W. Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, plenty of Republicans said they found it refreshing that Miers' experience amounted primarily to her time as a corporate lawyer and Bush aide.

That included Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who noted then that "40 percent of the men and women who have served as Supreme Court justices" had no judicial experience.

"One reason I felt so strongly about Harriet Miers' qualifications is I thought she would fill some very important gaps in the Supreme Court," Cornyn said in 2005. "Because right now you have people who've been federal judges, circuit judges most of their lives or academicians."

Now, with a Democrat in the White House, what Cornyn once considered refreshing in a high court nominee is in Kagan's case "surprising."

"Ms. Kagan is ... a surprising choice because she lacks judicial experience," Cornyn said Monday. "Most Americans believe that prior judicial experience is a necessary credential for a Supreme Court Justice."

A former Clinton administration aide and dean of the Harvard Law School, Kagan once was nominated for the federal bench, but her bid was stonewalled by a Republican Senate majority.

The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, likewise found Miers' qualifications suitable five years ago: "It is not necessary that she have previous experience as a judge in order to serve on the Supreme Court," Sessions said. "It's perfectly acceptable to nominate outstanding lawyers to that position."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/12/AR2010051200427_pf.html

:banghead:


And they (and their supporters) endlessly rant against "special rights" for GLBT individuals but have no problems with giving them to THEMSELVES and their supporters?
:eyes:

We need a new rule: IOKIYAD and throw it in their faces every.single.time they go off on another one of their hypocritical jaunts. We won (big time) in 2008. They lost. To the victors go the spoils. 'nuff said.

It would be sad if their utter hypocrisy were not true over and over again.

is that far too many people are simply too tired, busy, underinformed (or misinformed) to put their critical thinking skills to good use and realize how hypocritical the Republicans are thus enabling the Republicans to get away with their hypocrisy time after time. It doesn't help that we don't have a significant enough media apparatus to publicize Republican hypocrisy.

Seems like he had only been a judge for about 2 or 3 years.

Rehnquist, like Kagan, had no bench experience before being nominated to SCOTUS. Hypocrisy alert!