Jon Kyl strikes out against conservatives once again, mitigating his opposition  against (read: spinning his support for)  Senate approval of Kagan for the Supreme Court.

This is not unprecedented.   Jon Kyl also voted for the “Assault Weapons Ban” in the 1990s hidden inside the Clinton Crime Bill and was a sponsor of one of the amnesty bills in the 2000s.

Gun Owners of America reports in a recent broadcast email to its membership (note Kyl’s past and current support of Kagan):

Why is Senator Kyl Caving in to the Obama Administration?

 

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

 

What is Senator Jon Kyl thinking?

On the Sunday talk show circuit, Senator Kyl said that, “The filibuster should be relegated to the extreme circumstances, and I don’t think Elena Kagan represents that.”

In other words, even though the Republicans have the 60 votes to defeat Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court using a filibuster, he (Jon Kyl) wants Republicans to keep their ultimate weapon holstered during the nomination process.

But without a filibuster against Kagan, there is no chance of defeating this radical nomination.

Never mind the fact that Elena Kagan could become the deciding vote that overturns the pro-gun aspects of the D.C. v. Heller decision and upholds ObamaCare, thus saddling us with socialized medicine for the rest of our lifetimes.

Kagan is a radical anti-gunner.  She helped draft a directive in favor of a semi-automatic import ban — and, as a law clerk, advised against allowing the Supreme Court to hear arguments that the D.C. gun ban was unconstitutional.

But how can she be the deciding vote on the Court, you say?  Isn’t she just replacing a liberal justice?  Won’t the votes still be slanted 5-4 in our direction?

Well, President Obama is hoping for much more than that.  There has been a lot of speculation at the White House that Elena Kagan will exert influence on Justice Anthony Kennedy, who until now, has usually been the “swing vote” that often sides with the conservatives on the Court.

President Obama is hoping that Kagan’s reputed consensus building skills will be able to pull Kennedy back over to the liberal side of the fence.  For example, Time magazine reported on May 11 that:

Few think [Kagan] will be able to change the positions of the most devoted conservatives, Scalia, Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas. But apparently Obama thinks she may sway Kennedy….  Kagan supporters point to the fact that she convinced some hard-line Republicans to vote for her when she was nominated to be Solicitor General, most notably Jon Kyl of Arizona, the behind-the-scenes GOP power on the Judiciary Committee….  But what’s most important, her backers say, is her ability to work the process; her skill as a consensus builder, they argue, could eventually make a difference [in swaying Kennedy].

 

Back in 1999/2000, there was another “conservative” Senator trying to spin his support for Clinton federal court appointees, Orrin Hatch, at the time the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee.  In 2000 he was literally booed off the stage both in the Utah County Republican convention and at the Utah State Republican convention both for his support of all but 2 Clinton federal court appointees as well as for anti-gun provisions he wrote into his Juvenile Crime Bill.

It looks like Jon Kyl is trying very hard to uphold that tradition of pawing himself off in Arizona as a conservative, but behaving like a globalist liberal RINO sellout when he goes home to Washington.

Look at what just happened to another one of Kyl’s longtime “conservative” colleagues (click here).

It’s looks like it’s time to take a que from the Utah teapartyers and help another RINO retire from politics.  Two years to go. He starts campaigning for reelection next year.