GOP hypocrisy

How boring . . . to talk about Republican hypocrisy. I would like to ignore it, as it deserves to be ignored. But when it is as blatant as Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn and other senators are being over Elena Kagan's lack of experience as a judge, it demands comment.

Yesterday Elena Kagan paid her courtesy call on the Senate Minority Leader, who went to the Senate floor to express his concern that she might not be independent enough as a Supreme Court Justice to say no to an administration in which she currently serves as Solicitor General.

This is the same Mitch McConnell who was effusive in his support of George Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers, who was Bush's legal counsel in the White House and who played a crucial role in many dubious attempts to expand executive power, when the legal counsel should have said no to the president -- and didn't. The same Harriet Miers who was frequently pictured looking lovingly at her boss and whose entire career had essentially been in positions she owed to him, guaranteeing her loyalty to him.

Here is John Cornyn in 2005 speaking about Harriet Miers, saying approvingly that 40% of Supreme Court Justices had not had prior 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, because right now you have people who've been federal judges, circuit judges most of their lives or academicians."

And here is John Cornyn in 2010 speaking about Elena Kagan: "Ms. Kagan is ... a surprising choice because she lacks judicial experience. . . . Most Americans believe that prior judicial experience is a necessary credential for a Supreme Court Justice."

As they used to say in my home town: It's enough to make a preacher cuss.

Ralph