Yes, it’s Kagan for SCOTUS
President Obama has announced the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.
I can’t say it surprises me in any way, nor should it—this was telegraphed for quite some time—and I don’t think that this nominaton (or any other nomination he would have offered) is in any peril of not being approved by Congress. Nor do I think there’s any chance Kagan will become anything other than a reliably liberal vote on the Court.
Kagan represent several types of diversity: a woman, Jewish, and (if rumor be true—I have no idea whether it is and couldn’t care less either way) a lesbian. Whether these facts will inform her decisions (in the manner of that “wise latina,” Sotomayor) is anyone’s guess, since Kagan also would be the first Supreme Court Justice in nearly forty years with no judicial experience.
Here’s some further background on Kagan. In many ways, she sounds like a white, female Obama (or at least, Obama as he was presented to us during the campaign), albeit with somewhat better credentials. She’s known for “building consensus” and is generally pretty well-liked, although described as very strategic in her climb to the top. For a supposed legal scholar, her paper trail is almost as sparse as our president’s (and that’s saying something). She’s a Harvard Law graduate, worked as one of the Law Review’s editors (although not head honcho), and taught at the University of Chicago Law School at the same time a certain Barack Obama was there, although she was a full professor in a tenure track position (later becoming Dean of HLS). She’s been affiliated with some of the same boosters (judge Abner Mikva of Chicago in particular). And she’s even been a smoker, like Obama.
Although Kagan has kept pretty mum on politics, there are huge clues that she is very liberal. She was raised in the bosom of New York liberalism, and in one of her rare unguarded moments she divulged the following:
She had spent the summer of 1980 working to elect a liberal Democrat, Liz Holtzman, to the Senate. On Election Night, she drowned her sorrow in vodka and tonic as Ronald Reagan took the White House and Ms. Holtzman lost to “an ultraconservative machine politician,” she wrote, named Alfonse D’Amato.
“Where I grew up ”” on Manhattan’s Upper West Side ”” nobody ever admitted to voting for Republicans,” Ms. Kagan wrote, in a kind of Democrat’s lament. She described the Manhattan of her childhood, where those who won office were “real Democrats ”” not the closet Republicans that one sees so often these days but men and women committed to liberal principles and motivated by the ideal of an affirmative and compassionate government.”
No surprise whatsover there, either. Nor is it a surprise that Kagan wrote her Princeton thesis on the history of the American socialist movement from the beginning of the 20th century to the mid-thirties, under the direction of Sean Wilenz:
She titled the thesis “To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933,” and used the acknowledgments to thank her brother Marc, whose “involvement in radical causes,” she wrote, “led me to explore the history of American radicalism in the hope of clarifying my own political ideas.”
In 153 pages, the paper examines why, despite the rise of the labor movement, the Socialist Party lost political traction in the United States ”” a loss that she attributed to fissures and feuding within the movement. “The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America,” she wrote.
If that sounds like a defense of socialism, Mr. Wilentz insists that is not the case.
“She was interested in it,” he said. “To study something is not to endorse it.”
Absolutely correct. But the rest of the quotations from Kagan on politics suggest she is indeed a woman of the left, although how far to the left is unknown. Like Obama, she has been careful to keep those politics well-hidden, and that makes it possible for the left to consider her too far to the right, and the right to consider her too far to the left. I happen to think the latter opinion will be the one that pans out as time goes on and she rules on the law as a Supreme Court Justice. But I also happen to think that anyone Obama would have nominated would have been, likewise, a person of the left.
That was a foregone conclusion from the moment of Obama’s election. In fact, it was one of the things I feared even before his election, when it looked as though he would be the winner and part of a huge Democratic wave:
That brings to mind the sort of thing I’m most concerned about this election””what Democrats (or any one party) can do with power. It’s not so much the possibility of an Obama Presidency””although that would be bad enough””but the possibility of an Obama Presidency plus a Congress so strongly Democratic that it might even be filibuster-proof. That combination could do very serious damage indeed. It’s also likely that several Supreme Court Justices will be appointed by the next President, which in the case of Obama would skew the makeup of the Court towards liberal activism for decades to come.
This is the prospect we face: all three branches dominated by the liberal side of the political coin, with no checks on their power but the ability of the people to vote them out next time in two of the branches. Even in the early years of the Bush administration when Republicans controlled all three branches of government, the conservative majority in the Court was very iffy and the breakdown in Congress was very close (at times a tie in the Senate). This time the power of the Democrats is likely to be far greater than that.
Speaking of “decades to come,” we get to one of the main reasons for the Kagan pick: her age. She’s fifty, and likely to be on the Court for a long long time. That is very much part of the Obama calculus in nominating her. The Democratic dominance of Congress may come to an end in 2010, and the presidency might change hands in 2012. But the composition of the Court is not subject to those vagaries, but only to the health of its Justices. Say what you will about John McCain; had he been elected, we would almost certainly have had a strongly conservative Court that would have lasted for decades. Now we will not, and that will be one of Obama’s lasting legacies.
Her nomination should be opposed because (1) she’s a leftist, and (2) because she has no experience.
At last, a wise lesbiana for the court!
But Ann Coulter is just being mean: “Ruth Bader Ginsbug Will No Longer Be Known as ‘The Pretty One.’ ”
As soon as i saw it mentioned she had a “stellar academic career” I knew what we had. Boring. Predictable. Leftist. An original person would at least get described as “controversial academic career”.
Pray for the continuing health of those Supreme Court justices who actually base their decisions on the law rather than ideology.
And if i understand the pattern, can we expect a gay midget amputee with a history of mental illness on the court soon?
Kagan represent several types of diversity: a woman, Jewish,
How does a second extremely liberal Jewish woman count for diversity? Much as I detest the numbers game of identity politics, let’s indulge in it for a moment: having two representatives from approximately 1% of the population certainly does not represent “diversity.” OK, they’re not identical twins, but sororal ones. This is diversity?
And if i understand the pattern, can we expect a gay midget amputee with a history of mental illness on the court soon?
Nah, homosexuals are already over-represented, if rumor is to be credited. I’m thinking Canadian albino Eskimo Zoroastrian hermaphrodites’ time has finally come.
Occam’s, I hope you are on the search committee when the next vacancy comes around. It would be great fun seeing the media pundits running to their dictionaries to find out about Zoroastrians and then telling us how we have victimized them.
Hot Air linked to this New Yorker piece on Kagan by Jeffrey Toobin:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/05/elena-kagans-nomination.html
He’s known her for 30 years and still doesn’t know what she thinks.
What qualified her to Dean HLS for 6 years?
I rather suspect a SOTUS nomination was part of her deal to take the Solicitor General job, at which she has not visibly amounted to much.
She is a professional bullsh*tter who has Peter-principled out. And unlike Neo, I think it matters whether we have sexual deviants as Justices. Their victimology and rights’ assertions and beliefs are inappropriate for SOTUS.
Finally, I have little faith McCain would have nominated strict constructionists. That wish being father to the thought is not supported by his legislative history.
She’s a wise Jew!
Wait… is that some type of slur? So confused…
How does one become a full professor at the University of Chicago and dean of the Harvard law school without a substantial body of research and writing? I guess it’s the same way as Obama heading up the Harvard Law Review with no publications.
On a completely different topic, it would be hard to find three uglier women among people of normal intelligence than will be serving on the court. I guess that’s a type of affirmative action.
SteveH wrote “And if i understand the pattern, can we expect a gay midget amputee with a history of mental illness on the court soon?”
OB wote “I’m thinking Canadian albino Eskimo Zoroastrian hermaphrodites’ time has finally come.”
How about a gay midget amputee with a history of mental illness Canadian albino Eskimo Zoroastrian hermaphrodite?
Actually I would prefer one as President. Hey the administration is already more than half way to the bar scene in Star Wars, let’s finish the job and go out with a laugh as well as a bang.
Has anyone noticed that since his administration began Obama has screwed something up at least once a week? I cannot see him breaking a near perfect record with a Supreme Court choice. He would never forgive himself.
Have decided to play it safe:
That’s all I can safely say.
Wait! The nominee is unwise. Yes. Even safer. That’s all I shall say about the matter.
From the New Yorker article:
“I was struck by certain similarities between the President and his nominee. They are both intelligent, of course. . . ”
Of course.
Thanks, expat, but I’m afraid my rep as a contrary a-hole is far too widely appreciated for that.
I was wondering this. Out of the chute, one would presume that the dean of HLS would have some academic and/or legal chops. But then, one would be wrong. I was astonished to learn there’s another covert lefty magically rocketing up to dizzying heights without discernible accomplishment. To update the old saying for 2010, once is happenstance, twice is enemy action.
In fairness, distinction as a practitioner in a field bears no necessary implication for fitness as an administrator in it (sometimes the two seem anti-correlated, in fact). After all, Walter Alston entered the Hall of Fame managing the Dodgers, and his MLB career consisted of one at-bat, in which he struck out, and two fielding chances, in which he made one error. So, let us say, a modest MLB career as a player.
Having said that, Kagan is not being nominated for another administrative position, but rather for one as an uber-practitioner. Hence her record as a practitioner is entirely relevant; acumen at legal reasoning and writing is at best a peripheral consideration in a dean.
How about a gay midget amputee with a history of mental illness Canadian albino Eskimo Zoroastrian hermaphrodite?
Can’t miss. Let’s go with that. Who couldn’t relate to such a candidate?
How about an illegal immigrant? We need an illegal immigrant on the court…
To get real diversity we need a convicted felon or two. After all, who knows more firsthand experience of the criminal justice system than…a criminal?
If only we could find one among the Democrats… Wait, I’ve got it. Alcee Hastings, come on down!
What a historic opportunity. Alcee would have a good shot at being the first person in American history to be impeached and convicted twice. Run, Alcee, run!
What diversity are we talking about here? From what I can discern, if Kagan joins the Court then we will have three women ffrom New York City ruling on the legality of those cases that come before the Court. Just what we need is another person on the Court from NYC with all the attendant bias therein contained.
Hasn’t New York City and Ivy League universities done enough damage to this country?
Obama is pandering to the liberal Jews to deflect the flack about Netanyahu and construction in Jerusalem; getting a reliable rubber stamp in Kagan, plus maybe setting the stage for Holder later as a nominee during a possible second term?
And from Gateway Pundit today:
When Kagan was Dean of Law at Harvard University, she expelled military recruiters from campus in defiance of The Solomon Act, which she has argued against in writing and speeches. She, along with 40 other law professors, argued to the Supreme Court against the Soloman Act, but her arguments were rejected by even the most liberal justices.
On Kagan, at Gateway Pundit, a little easier link…
Echoing Dennis’s comment above, from Power Line:
If Elena Kagan is confirmed, as she is expected to be, the Supreme Court will contain three female Justices. And it will be a diverse group of women too — one originally from Brooklyn, one originally from Manhattan, and one originally from the Bronx.
Like the song says: “New York, New York, it’s a hell of a town.”
Well, since once again I don’t give a crap what anyone thinks about what I say, she even LOOKS gay.
I don’t follow her, and am not that familiar with who she is, but I did see a photo of her today on Drudge. That’s the first thing that hit me. And she’d be the dominant one in the relationship.
Kagan may be prompted to really think for the first time in her life. She might get tired of being a parrot, start writing and discovering, and within the Supreme Court:
There might be some good things.
Or not. (Think Deniro in Raging Bull: I heard some things, I heard tings.)
it would be hard to find three uglier women among people of normal intelligence than will be serving on the court.
Roberts is passable, maybe, but ain’t none of the other guy justices exactly good-looking. If being eye candy should be a factor in a SCOTUS nomination, it should be applied to male candidates too (and to members of whatever the other genders now call themselves).
Why not fight Obama on a nominee with NO judicial experience? This is like nominating a county sheriff for the FBI directorship.
She’s simply not qualified, as no amount of time in the ivory tower of academia is sufficient.
Senate Republicans should make that a mantra, while not saying a word about her other suspected views. Let Obama and the Democrats try to make the case that experience is unnecessary.
This is the SCOTUS, it will impact the country for perhaps generations. Obama gets to nominate whomever he wishes but its the Senate who approves the nominee.
By all means filibuster, otherwise the Republicans are effectively condoning that nomination. If some RINO’s break the filibuster, they’ll be exposed and that alone will have value.
Why not fight Obama on a nominee with NO judicial experience?
Good point, because it would let Republicans flay her as a proxy for Obama in the runup to the midterm elections. Persistent, edged questions focusing on her experience and how, despite her lack of such, she can possibly consider herself qualified for the Supreme Court.
Just boring in on that topic, indefatigably needling her with it, peppering her with it, waiting, waiting, waiting for her to get annoyed and make the mistake, to blurt out the forensic equivalent of a hanging curve ball, the inartful response that would let me tie her lack of experience to Obama’s… (E.g., a response suggesting something about experience not being that important, and then intoning somberly that the American people have recently come to appreciate the hazards of inexperience. And letting that remark soak in for a moment.) That’ll leave a mark.
Doing that would be better than #1. And you know what is #1.
Occam,
Yes, exactly! This is an opportunity, to highlight for the American people a fundamental difference between conservatives and liberals, in just the way you’ve articulated. Obviously experience is no substitute for other needed qualities but none at all?
The tone the republicans should take is bemused puzzlement. As in, “it’s a joke, right?”
Then grill baby, grill…not antagonistically but rather make Kagan explain why and how she thinks she has the qualifications to do the job and, when she says she does, acknowledge her academic credentials and then ask her if she’d hire a babysitter with no experience whom she didn’t know. If she would hire a surgeon who’d never performed surgery.
Ask her if she agrees that investors would think incompetent, any board who voted to install a CEO with no management experience.
Beat the drum over and over, Senator after Senator each playing off of her responses, until she cracks and reveals what she really thinks…
She knows she has no experience, so she knows she’s not qualified. Which means she’s accepting this nomination out of ego and ideology. And that’s the crack, within which the wedge can be driven.
Geoffrey Britain . . .
I agree. Surely some qualifications are needed to be on the Supreme Court. The choice of Kagan is just plain idiotic.
Geoffrey, I’m sneakier than that.
I’d start by asking in detail about her duties as dean, and then segue into grilling her on the lack of “diversity” in her HLS faculty appointments. I’d twist her arm in a rapid-fire series of questions about why she hired no minorities (IIRC), in hopes that she would open the door by bringing up the qualifications of candidates.
I wouldn’t let on then that I had her; I’d give her more rope, and bore in on what she considered to be the requisite qualifications, until she mentioned experience and/or publication record. Then I’d let her off that hook by acknowledging her point and agreeing with her that I could see how something as important as an HLS faculty appointment certainly demanded considerable legal experience.
That’s when I’d go for the jugular. I’d have researched every relevant faculty appointment to see if any of them had the same or more practice experience or publication history than Kagan. If so, after a digression to relax her a bit, I’d come back in an apparent non sequitur to ask out of the blue if she thought X was qualified for the Supreme Court not someday, but right now.
Either way she answers, she’s stuffed. If she says “no,’ then we spend some time on why. If she says “yes,” then we spend some time on what distinguished her from all the other potential candidates similarly situated. Tough question to answer.
If there is no person who fits the bill, I’d stick with the experience angle more generically, as to why experience and publication record was important in filling a legal faculty position, and proceed from there.
But always waiting for the hanging curve ball, when she says experience doesn’t matter. That’s when I’d get on Barry’s !##$ list in perpetuity.
vanderleun Says:
“Ruth Bader Ginsbug Will No Longer Be Known as ‘The Pretty One.’ ”
I thought that was Stephen Breyer.
The country is being run by college faculty now. Wonderful.
William F. Buckley, Jr.’s famous quote was never so appropriate.
How is this going to go down in 5 years when the country figures out how old hat liberal progressivism is? I’m no Harvard genius but i got one hell of an American gut feeling that the supreme court life appointment may not be written in the stone we now think it is.
“Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”
So, our now POTUS, acting Commander in Chief, also with no significant life experience outside of academia, and no personal military experience or related sense of identification and gravity, other than a casual campaign comment that he thought about enlisting at one time… appoints another notoriously anti-military left-wing liberal to a post of critical long-term importance for the republic; that, after “she has argued … in writing and speeches… to the Supreme Court against the Soloman Act, but her arguments were rejected by even the most liberal justices.” Hopefully, the Republican Party will hold a rigid line of solidarity against this mockery, if only to make an important statement about the fiduciary responsibility which the Democrats have betrayed in favor of their radical-left ideological conspiracy against mainstream America; and whileChina, Iran and North Korea have established a strategic alliance that focuses on missile and nuclear development, according to a new report.
From the “‘Lectric Law Library’s Lexicon”:
“TREASON
This word imports a betraying, treachery, or breach of allegiance.
The Constitution of the United States, Art. III, defines treason against the United States to consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort. This offence is punished with death. By the same article of the Constitution, no person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.”
I’d settle for impeachment …
in another thread i laid out other treason and such laws other than the constitutional one… (i think the thread where we discussed removing citizenship from the NY incident)
Oh… one should note that if they succeed, then what they did was not treason… what they did was become fathers and mothers of a new country, a new way of living, and all its implications to the world.
Art, I don’t disagree with you, technically; I mostly inserted those comments as an observation, perhaps exploration, intimating the thin line that does (often) separate treason from legitimate protest. If America is (ever) catastrophically hit by a missile developed from the latest and greatest generation of the “axis of evil” (now China, N.K., and Iran), the notion of “aid and comfort” may become broader; especially in so far as it is concerned with squelching the military’s legitimate right of representation, as any other employer, government or otherwise, on the nations open campuses. At the very least Kagan advocates discriminatory policy against our foremost bulwark of protection from authentic enemies; certainly some kind of “aid and comfort”…
You guys are going about this all wrong.
The only chance yo have is to get together and cunningly start praising the heck out Kagan—-like keep repeating her “I love the Federalist Society” line—-triggering a Pavlov-like leftist backlash who then turn on Bam and pull a Harriet Miers.
I know, its unlikely…mostly b/c republicans aren’t that smart and even if they were they’d still have to outmaneuver a man who administered a beat-down to both the Clintons and the VRWC. Odds aren’t good.
But its the only chance you have.