Differences aside, Sessions' small-town upbringing resonated with me
SAN DIEGO -- At a time when we "unfriend" those we disagree with, and when we're only interested in opinions that reaffirm what we believe, is it still possible to acknowledge the value of someone we don't particularly like?
It is. Because it happened to me.
When I heard that special counsel Robert Mueller had finally submitted his report, the first person I thought of was Jeff Sessions.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson was also thinking about Sessions. After all, it was the then-attorney general's recusal from the Justice Department investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election that opened the door for Mueller's appointment. No recusal, no Mueller. Many conservatives will never forgive Sessions for that decision.
On his television show on the day the report landed, Carlson argued that Sessions had been "really hurt" by all this and that his reputation had been "completely destroyed" because of the investigation.
Please. Sessions had to recuse himself because he had met with Russian officials as a surrogate for Donald Trump's presidential campaign. And while it's true that Sessions has been "really hurt" by all this, the person who hurt him wasn't Mueller. It was Trump. You don't hire someone and then publicly humiliate him for months. Trump put Sessions on the spot and then put him in the crosshairs.
That's what I was thinking of when I met Sessions recently at College of the Ozarks, a Christian institution in Southern Missouri where both of us were invited to speak.
After hearing him address the students, and then engaging in some private small talk, I came away with a new appreciation for the man. And no one was more surprised by this epiphany than me.
Over the years, I must have written about a dozen columns about the Alabamian. Almost all of them were negative. Some were downright mean. When Sessions railed against affirmative action, I bashed him. When he helped Trump get elected, I bashed him again. And when, as attorney general, he targeted so-called "sanctuary cities," well, you get the idea.
In the 1980s, when he was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, he was accused of being racist toward African-Americans. That narrative only got stronger when, as a U.S. senator, he took positions that were at odds with the best interests of people of color.
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