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A Texas Senator Shows How Not to Assess a Supreme Court Nomination : Partisan Politics at its Worst : Cornyn Broadcasts His Double Standard to the World

By Andis Kaulins

Greetings to all of our many friends in the great State of Texas, but you must have better people than Senator Cornyn to elect to Congress. We say this for non-partisan reasons.

As political centrists, one thing that really can raise our hackles is the double standard that some overly partisan politicians -- and voters -- apply to the world, and Texas Senator John Cornyn currently tops our list of people whose forked tongue pronouncements should be eyed with caution.

People who live and act by double standards -- one standard for them but a different standard for others --  are people who unnecessarily poison the political atmosphere and who should have no business in running the nation's affairs.

Senator Cornyn, whose judgment of people must be viewed with a jaundiced eye -- at least ever since the Charlie Crist affair, has indicated that he might not support Elena Kagan because of her "judicial inexperience". Fair enough. That would normally be a perfectly supportable reason.

However, it is not an acceptable reason if -- as is the case -- Senator Cornyn took exactly the opposite position on the qualifcation of "judicial experience" when supporting a Supreme Court nomination from his own political party. In fact, as written by Tom Benning at the Dallas Morning News in Cornyn hints he's unlikely to back Kagan's nomination:

"[W]hen President George W. Bush  selected his former aide, Harriet Miers, for a court seat in 2005 ... Miers had also never been a judge, but Cornyn wrote a column in The Dallas Morning News that extolled Miers' credentials ? including her lack of judicial experience.

"Although she has no prior judicial experience, this was true for nearly 40 percent of the men and women who have served as Supreme Court justices," he wrote of Miers, whose nomination was ultimately withdrawn amid stiff political opposition. "Indeed, rather than make her nomination less desirable, many of us believe that her long career in private practice will be to her credit.""

That is a deplorable double standard, especially for a man who is broadcasting it to the world.

It is of course up to the people of Texas if they elect two-faced people as their representatives to Congress, but the rest of us -- who would very much question Cornyn's qualifications -- have to tolerate his being in the United States Senate in spite of his academic record of being a graduate of Trinity University and St. Mary's School of Law. We know Trinity only from Division III football and St. Mary's School of Law is ranked as a 4th-tier law school. Perhaps the academic reality there is better than that, but such an improved assessment awaits proof. Cornyn is not it.

We could understand Cornyn opposing Elena Kagan because of her political views, e.g. on military matters, but for someone like Cornyn to oppose her because HE questions HER qualifications, is a joke. If he did his job half as well as she has done her job all her life, he would have the reputation for being the greatest Senator ever. The reality, in fact, is far from that.

We personally agree, by the way, that a very talented Kagan might, however, be better in a more people-oriented position because her skills are concentrated in the human relations area, but when people such as Cornyn appear on the scene with this kind of a deplorable double standard, our instincts are to say, "Go Kagan!"

Full post as published by LawPundit on May 11, 2010 (boomark / email).