Funny ol’ John Kyl
He forgets what it was like when the shoe was on the other foot. Greg Sargent:
Hmm, this one is pretty amusing. In reacting to the Sonia Sotomayor announcement, GOP Senator Jon Kyl said that when Samuel Alito was nominated to the Supreme Court in 2005, Dems were given some three months to consider the pick. Kyl today asked for Dems to extend Republicans the “same courtesy.”
But back in 2006, Kyl actually hammered Dems for wanting time to consider Alito, saying that it should only take the Senate a “couple of days” to debate the choice.
Kyl, in a statement today:
“When Samuel Alito was first nominated on October 31, 2005, the minority was afforded 93 days before he received a confirmation vote on January 31, 2006.
“I would expect that Senate Democrats will afford the minority the same courtesy as we move forward with this process.”
Kyl, speaking about the Alito confirmation battle in 2006 (via Nexis):
“One might wonder why we would need more than just a couple of days of debate (the average of recent nominees is two to three days), especially since nothing new has been said for weeks. But, if the public has noticed anything during this process it is that senators value their right of unlimited debate.”
Indeed, one of the chief reasons that Alito’s confirmation hearings did take 93 days, as Kyl now says, is that the hearings were put off so that Kyl could get back to his state and campaign against a stiff Democratic challenge he was facing in the fall of 2005. And then, once the hearings were rescheduled, he pushed for them to be wrapped up in a “couple of days.”
So it’s not clear what Kyl means when he says Dems were extended the “courtesy” of a delay at the time.
