It is truly hard to imagine a Democratic senator announcing he’d already made up his mind to vote against him, and then refusing to meet with John Roberts when he was up for appointment as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Can’t you just hear the righteous Republican indignation? Come to think of it, it would have been completely justified indignation.

But according to Republican rules, when one of them does it, it’s A-OK. Or even when two of them do it.

First it was Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who said there was no point in meeting with Obama nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

Sen. James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who previously voted against Sotomayor’s current post as a federal appeals court judge, told the Tulsa World Thursday it is a “foregone conclusion” that he would not support Obama’s pick for the high court…

“The reason is he already knows how he is going to vote and it’s probably best not to take up her time, she’s very busy,” Inhofe communications director Jared Young told CNN.

At least consideration for Sotomayor was the stated reason for Inhofe’s decision (although ThinkProgress points out he reached it 11 years before she was nominated).

Now it’s Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) who is too mindful of the clock to meet with Sotomayor.

Sen. Bob Corker blew off his meeting with Sonia Sotomayor last week. Hobbling along with her leg in a cast, she was 10 minutes late and he said he didn’t feel like waiting. “I decided to proceed on to the next meeting,” he told a Tennessee Press Association breakfast in Chattanooga.

This kind of treatment is insulting and shabby and reflects poorly on the high office these men hold. Common courtesy is the hallmark of the Senate, but these two dolts obviously didn’t get the memo.

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