Kyl Bucks Obama on Confirmation Timetable — Falsely Cites Roberts And Alito As Precedent

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Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) is now saying the confirmation process for Sonia Sotomayor will likely have to wait much longer than President Obama wants — going into September rather than happening before the August recess.

“My guess is that if you apply the same general standards as were applied to the Roberts and Alito nominations that probably it goes into the first part of September,” Kyl told Fox News.

Simply put, this is baloney on multiple levels. For one thing, John Roberts was first nominated for the Supreme Court in late July 2005, then confirmed as Chief Justice in late September 2005 — a period of just over two months. Alito took a bit longer, being nominated in late October 2005, and confirmed in late January 2006 — a period of three months. Kyl is using these two examples to justify a period of nearly four months.

And by the way, the process in those two examples was especially convoluted due to unique circumstances. Roberts was originally nominated for Sandra Day O’Connor’s seat, then was switched over to the Chief Justice post after William Rehnquist died. A search then began anew for the O’Connor seat, and Alito’s confirmation probably got more scrutiny after the misfire of the Harriet Miers nomination.

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