SPIN METER: GOP senators' shifting standards

[babylonsister]

SPIN METER: GOP senators' shifting standards

By HENRY C. JACKSON
Associated Press Writer


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

It depends on when you're asking.

As they prepare for a Supreme Court confirmation fight, Republicans are criticizing President Barack Obama's nominee, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, because she's never been a judge.

That's true, as far as it goes.

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.

This whole judicial experience thing didn't matter to top Republicans when their own party was doing the nominating.

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."

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[rock]

1. Color me shocked

Shocked I tell you.