Sessions will be more fair with Sotomayor than Democrats were with him

CNN:

"You will get a fair hearing before this committee," Sessions told President Obama's Supreme Court nominee with emphatic gestures and tone.

That greeting wasn't just pleasantries. It was a promise born out of his own experience.

President Reagan nominated Sessions to be a federal judge, but the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected him 23 years ago this week.

He is now the top Republican on that panel.

"That is a very odd thing," Sessions told CNN in an interview in his Senate office. "Somebody says it gives new meaning to the word irony."

Talking about that irony brings back a flood of memories that he would rather forget.

"It was not a pleasant event, I got to tell you. It was really so heartbreaking to me," Sessions said. Watch as Sessions says he's amazed he's on the Senate panel »

In 1986, Sessions was a 39-year-old U.S. attorney in Alabama. His nomination to be a U.S. District Court judge was troubled from the start because of controversy surrounding his prosecution of civil rights activists for voting fraud.

Sessions' fate was sealed after Democrats called several witnesses who accused him of a pattern of racial insensitivity -- including calling a black lawyer "boy" and civil rights groups such as the NAACP "un-American."

Sessions still gets visibly upset when he hears those charges.

"That was not fair. That was not accurate. Those were false charges and distortions of anything that I did, and it really was not. I never had those kinds of views, and I was caricatured in a way that was not me," Sessions said. Watch as the senator says his views and remarks were distorted »

Democrats pounded him during his marathon confirmation hearings. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, was quoted at the time as saying he was "concerned about the racist remarks that Mr. Sessions has acknowledged that he made."

Sessions now says, "That was totally distorted of what the reality was, and maybe he thought so at the time. He was getting some information from some very aggressive outside groups that were driving this entire message."

He said, "It was hard to get my explanation out. Charges were thrown out, and then you'd try to respond and I just wasn't able to get the message out."

...

The comparisons to Rush Limbaugh's statements about Sotomayor are not apt. Rush is not a senator on the committee. He does not have the ability to block an appointment. He is stating a point of view based on a statement by Sotomayor that even Democrats are having trouble defending.

What happened to Sessions is what happened to many Republican nominees. Democrat demagoguery on race prevailed over rational discussion of the issues. Democrats perfected this kind of race baiting opposing civil rights and since then have used it to destroy political opponents who think equal protection of the law applies to everyone and not just those given preferences by Democrats.

Sessions and the other Republicans on the committee will be more fair than Democrats have been in similar circumstances. Unfortunately, they are unlikely to get any credit for their fairness nor will Democrats reciprocate when the tables are eventually turned. Democrat bad faith on judicial nominations is just a given these days.

Suzanne Fields has a good piece on how Democrats threw the skunk in the jury box beginning with the Bork nomination.