Jeff Sessions Wins GOP Hypocrite Award for Supporting an Inexperienced Harriet Miers While Calling Kagan Nomination 'Troubling'

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

Welcome back to GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

Jeff Sessions has a history of hypocrisy when it comes to the Supreme Court; just last year he was so busy accusing then-nominee Sonia Sotomayor of racism that he forgot about his own racist past. But now it's a new year and a new potential justice. Has the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee finally learned to grow up and judge a nominee on their merits?

Yeah, we weren't really expecting that either. In fact, Sessions has made his hypocrisy even more clear this go-around. As this Associated Press article points out:

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."

But on Monday, Sessions was seeing things differently. Kagan, he said, "warrants great scrutiny" because of her lack of time as a judge. "Ms. Kagan's lack of judicial experience and short time as solicitor general ... is troubling," he said.

Oh, troubling as in the total absence of logic in your clearly partisan argument? OK, got it.

As Rachel Maddow points out here, Sessions is far from the only loser Republican to try and make this hypocritical argument. Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell faulted Kagan for being an insider in the administration, since she's the solicitor general. Yet he had no problem with Dubya nominating the counsel for the White House, who had been his own personal lawyer for years before he became president. Add to that list Sens. Jim DeMint and John Cornyn. 

But as the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Sessions should know his philosophy on judicial experience without having to go back and Google himself, as Maddow suggests in her tips for hypocrites.

Furthermore, he knows what it's like to be denied a spot on a bench, having failed to gain confirmation as a U.S. district court nominee in 1986. At least he was denied a spot on the bench for reasons that had a basis in logical arguments. 

And if he doesn't remember that whole embarrassing episode, maybe he can recall the real reason Kagan doesn't have judicial experience: His very own party denied her 11 years of judicial experience when he and his Senate pals filibustered her nomination to the D.C. circuit in 1999. And that's why Jeff Sessions is our GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

Remember our motto: So many Republican hypocrites, so little time.

Catch up with you soon.

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This is Jeff Sessions' second GOP Hypocrite of the Week Award. He also won on June 5, 2009. You can see a list of all previous nominees here.