[H/t Heather]
I'm not very excited about covering this Supreme Court nomination process, but I will point out Republican demagoguery over it.
The gerbil-esque Republican senator from Alabam, Jeff Sessions, had quite an opening on Monday. He viciously attacked Elena Kagan on all counts and went so far as to say she was a traitor to the troops -- and it was all considered OK, because conservatives can never go too far.
SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: Ms. Kagan has less real legal experience of any nominee in at least 50 years, and it's not just that the nominee has not been a judge. She has barely practiced law, and not with the intensity and duration from which I think a real legal understanding occurs.
Her actions punished the military, and demeaned our soldiers as they were courageously fighting for our country in two wars overseas. Ms. Kagan has associated herself with well-known activist judges who have used their power to re-define the meaning of words of our Constitution and laws in ways that, not surprisingly, have the result of advancing that judge's preferred social policies and agendas.
Tweety blasted Sessions pretty well, which offended the tortured souls at Newsbusters, but this is about Sessions. Sending our troops to countries that didn't attack us and then watching the body counts rise on all sides of the conflicts doesn't faze Sessions. See, they could all be home or on some nice and cozy military base instead of dealing with the heat and the IED's of Iraq and Afghanistan, building democracy from the ground up, brick by brick, body by body, person by person. It's a task not all soldiers embrace wholeheartedly.
Think Progress also catches Sessions with a Harriet Miers crush:
On CNN’s American Morning, many of Sessions’ arguments were effectively demonstrated to be disingenuous by host John Roberts. Arguing that Kagan has “serious problems,” Sessions complained that Kagan has praised former Israeli Supreme Court President Aharon Barak. But Roberts noted that Justice Antonin Scalia had also praised Barak.
Sessions then attacked Kagan for not having a depth of experience, but Roberts noted that Sessions had praised Bush nominee Harriet Miers, who also did not have judicial experience. Roberts said, “Just a second ago, you pointed to Harriet Miers’ White House experience as a qualifying factor, but you point to Elena Kagan’s White House experience as a potential disqualifying factor.”
Harriet Miers was an awesome pick for Bush. Jeff Sessions said so. Doesn't that qualify him for much bigger things in conservative-land. In movement conservatism, dumbing down government agencies and the people that work there is paramount. With Sessions, they've found somebody who operates at the bottom level of the not good for government chart. Or rather, he's their kind of guy.
