So now it is official. Elena Kagan, the winner of the Dick Morris look-alike contest, will be our next Supreme Court justice. What can one say? She's liberal; we all knew a liberal would be picked. I only have a couple of comments.
First of all, Obama is being disingenuous when he says Kagan will be open to a wide range of points of view. She is a liberal, probably the best liberal we could have hoped for given what little we know about her. She may turn out to be a surprise, but I rather doubt it.
Second, she has never been a sitting judge. That is a rather big gap in the resume. UC-Irvine Law School Dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, who had predicted a political figure like Janet Napolitano, now says that Kagan is an "impeccable choice".........
"No one is surprised that Elena Kagan is President Obama’s pick to replace Justice John Paul Stevens. Like Sonia Sotomayor last year, she is someone sure to be confirmed by the Senate and will require little of the president’s political capital. Kagan is impeccably qualified. Unlike other recent nominees, she has a small paper trail. She’s never been a judge, so there are no prior opinions to scrutinize. She’s written only five major law review articles, and none are controversial."
A lot of people are already making comments about her sexual orientation-that she may be a lesbian. Some comments I have heard are inappropriate. I don't care how many gays are on the Supreme Court (as long as they are conservative gays). Yet, since the issue has been raised by some commentators, I do take note of her positions on a couple of gay issues. She supported having military recruiters kicked off the Harvard campus because of the military's "don't ask-don't tell" policy. There is a question in my mind if she can follow the law if such issues come before the Supreme Court-say gay marriage. Other than that, sexual orientation should not be an issue.
There will some Republican "nays", but unless something unexpected comes up, she will be confirmed rather easily.
After all, she is "impeccably qualified".
There is a question in my mind if she can follow the law if such issues come before the Supreme Court-say gay marriage.
ReplyDeleteThe law or the Constitution? That'll be a different matter. Equal protection and all that...
She is "impeccably qualified." That's about the best that could be said of Alito too. Thomas, on the other hand, was plainly unqualified -- as he unintentionally makes clear in his own biography. He was asked questions about well established court precedent, and had no clue what the answer was. That should have settled his confirmation, in the negative, without ever reaching the nebulous relevance of Anita Hill's recollections of ugly personal behavior.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I would have preferred the white guy from Montana. Someone outside the beltway, one token Protestant, a wild west liberal. It would have been refreshing. Kagan is all right, but no more than that.