Jeff Sessions has yet to complete his first year in office. But already he has cemented his status as the worst choice for attorney general in recent American history.
The former Alabama senator hadn’t even been confirmed yet when he found himself outsmarted by soon-to-be-ex-Senator Al Franken on the question of contact with Russian officials.
That led to his recusal in the Russia investigation, which in turn led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, which in turn is creating endless headaches for the president who appointed him.
To make matters worse, last month the Republicans lost the seat in Alabama formerly held by Sessions, something that would not have happened if the senator had simply realized his shortcomings and stayed in the Senate.
And then last week Sessions adopted a policy of strict federal enforcement (reversing the Cole memorandum) of marijuana laws that went against his own president’s stated policy during the 2016 campaign.
Donald Trump’s policy was “In terms of marijuana and legalization, I think that should be a state issue, state-by-state,” as he told the Washington Post.
That position was taken by most of the contenders for the GOP nomination for a simple reason: The Republican Party has traditionally been the party of states’ rights.
It takes a special kind of mind to miss such an obvious connection – a dull one.
When you look at how much damage Sessions has done to the Trump administration in how little time, it is difficult to conclude he is anything other than stupid.
Already his opponents are bringing up Sessions’ lame attempt at a joke back in the 1980s, when he said of the Ku Klux Klan that he thought they “were OK until I found out they smoked pot.”
I guess in Alabama that qualifies as a real knee-slapper. But you’ve got to be a little bit sharper when you go to D.C.
In that regard, Sessions seems unaware that the effort to outlaw marijuana on the federal level is a product of the New Deal, during which the Democrats increased federal powers over aspects of life formerly seen as matter for state or local governments.
In the Republican view, it was no business of the federal government if the residents of a certain city or state wanted to permit cannabis consumption – or outlaw it.
We saw a good example of that here in New Jersey last week when the Borough Council of Point Pleasant Beach voted to ban marijuana dispensaries in the town.
The mayor said the council wants to preserve the borough’s status as “an amazing family-friendly town” – which it is on summer nights until about 9 p.m., when the minivans leave and the barbarian hordes arrive.
At that point the boardwalk bars fill up with some of the rowdiest, worst-behaved tourists at the Jersey Shore.
“Are they closing down the liquor stores and the bars down there?” asked state Sen. Nick Scutari, a Democrat from Union County. “It’s laughable that they think marijuana is gonna be worse. It’s not even vaguely comparable the experience the police have with people on marijuana versus alcohol.”
In any event, Scutari’s bill lets every town set its own policy on pot sales. That’s the sort of home rule Republicans are supposed to endorse.
One who does is Colorado Senator Cory Gardner, who said in a tirade on the Senate floor last week that both Sessions and Trump had assured him that the Trump administration would not interfere with the marijuana trade in his state.
An angry Gardner said he is prepared to “to take all steps necessary” to stop Sessions from interfering with the intrastate legalization of marijuana.
“I will be putting a hold on every Justice Department nomination until Attorney General Sessions lives up to the conversation we had … about states’ rights in Colorado,” Gardner said.
This represents yet another black eye for a guy who doesn’t have any space left to absorb a shiner.
Sessions has screwed up everything he’s touched. He offers perhaps the best proof to date of the maxim that often in life the best thing to do is nothing.
If Sessions had simply stayed in the Senate, the Republicans would now have a two-vote majority as opposed to the current single-vote edge.
And if he would just shut up about an issue like marijuana legalization, the media would not be having so much fun pointing out that he’s contradicting his own president’s stated goals.
It’s taken Trump a year to recover from a transition for which his campaign was clearly unprepared.
How long will it take before he gets rid of the worst nominee of them all?
