Fake Outrage on the Left Over Kagan
The political left and the pretenders at centrism enter the Elena Kagan fray kvetching about her … ambiguity.
First, there’s the New York Times editorial ominously titled “Searching for Elena Kagan”:
But where, precisely, has Ms. Kagan been during the legal whirlwinds of the last few years, as issues like executive power, same-sex marriage, the rights of the accused and proper application of the death penalty have raged through the courts? As dean of the Harvard Law School, she spoke out against the military’s discrimination against gay and lesbian soldiers, but many students and professors there have expressed chagrin that she did not take a more forceful stance. And she has stated that “there is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage.” Her positions on other current issues are either unclear — or possibly to the right of Justice Stevens.
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Translation: We can’t tell if she’s liberal enough. That’s so frustrating!
And then there’s the pretenders Brooks and Frum. Is it safe to dislike something the president is doing or being? The New York Times doesn’t like the president’s actions? Whew! It’s safe to have a “dissenting opinion.”
First, David Brooks, since we’re at the New York Times:
Tom Goldstein, the publisher of the highly influential SCOTUSblog, has described Kagan as “extraordinarily — almost artistically — careful. I don’t know anyone who has had a conversation with her in which she expressed a personal conviction on a question of constitutional law in the past decade.”
Her publication record is scant and carefully nonideological. She has published five scholarly review articles, mostly on administrative law and the First Amendment. These articles were mostly on technical and procedural issues.
Writing at CNN, David Frum criticizes Obama’s leadership style:
Obama leads from the rear. He acts only after the call for action has become a clamor.
Frum doesn’t mention Kagan in his description of the gutless commander he describes, but some liberals feel just that way about President Obama’s choice of Elena Kagan.
I find the criticism about Elena Kagan’s lack of a paper trail amusing. Where were these people when people were trying to find something out about Barack Obama?
Dear Dr. Bones,
Why should a pajamatarian wingnutette waste her time offerin’ free psychoanalysis of decent political grown-ups in a forum where scarcely any DPGU other than the Muses and you and I are likely to notice?
Considered either as politicl analyst or as yaleodramatist, Neocomradess (j.g.) M. X. Clouthier must be pretty near the bottom of their barrel. Why, even *I* would hesitate to suppose Wally Wombschool and Cindy from Wasilla so utterly foxcuckooed that they need to be advised that maybe “the Democrat party” might know how to act like a party from time to time!
Healthy days.
Are you sober?
Somebody’s code generator needs to be re-booted.
If anyone is able to decipher this psycho-babble, please let me know. Of course, it was 2:36am… never mind!
What to me is most disturbing about Elena Kagan is just how empty of maturing experiences her life seems to have been. Here is a 50 year old woman who has never done much of anything or had any real life experience at anything but being a government bureaucrat, no real life learning experiences except going to an insular and isolated elite Ivy League university, no long term or short term relationships like marriage or even children, and absolutely no real life challenges ever faced in the real world of jobs, home, and other people.
She is in many very striking and worrisome ways just like her President Barack Obama, that is, she knows almost nothing about the real world most Americans live in and has never seemed to experience anything like the real life most people have to come to grips with every day. I have no doubt that she is quite heavily endowed intellectually, and has learned how to manipulate her way through the US government bureaucracy, who butt to kiss and how often, but like so many elite people, she probably thinks she knows more and is a better person than the hoi polloi of America.
I am not surprised that someone as vapid and lacking in maturity and real life experience like Barack Obama could appoint someone even more vapid and immature and lacking in real life experience than himself as judge for life on the American Supreme Court. I am deeply concerned as to the sort of idiotic and pie in the sky judgements this Kagan woman is liable to produce to the detriment of America and the rest of the world.
I see no reason to doubt your analysis. One of Kagan’s very few actual concrete statements boiled down to “the government should decide what constitutes legitimate ‘free speech’”, which to her does not include criticizing government policies or “philosophies” she approves of- like Obama’s. And naturally, the government should have the power to silence “illegitimate” speech. Or so she believes.
Since this is totally in line with the opinions of her boss, the Self-Exalted One, her presence on SCOTUS would amount to a de facto admission that at least Obama, if not his entire party, no longer believe in the Constitution. Not that this would greatly surprise anyone who has observed them for the last half-century.
More to the point, it actually confirms my first reaction when Obama hires or nominates anyone for anything. Namely, that he has absolutely no one either working for him, or in his “circle of friends”, who is not at heart a leftist thug. People are known by who they associate with. And Obama’s associates give all the appearance of having spent the Sixties and early Seventies throwing Molotov cocktails around more-or-less at random.
clear ether
eon
Ken Besig, you have pretty much said it all. And one can predict Kagan’s views. If asked to render an opinion on gay marriage, her approach will be to answer the question “Why shouldn’t gays have their turn?” That will be her approach because it is lighter than air. She is unencumbered by experience, free to dream whatever she might dream.
According to this article, citing her questionnaire respones during her confirmation hearings for solicitor general, Ms. Kagan stated rather clearly that there is no federal Constitutional right to homosexual marriage.
She will probably be asked similar questions during her confirmation hearings to become a Supreme Court justice and it will be interesting to learn of her response.
Dan Miller, thanks for the information about Kagan. However, it does not indicate that Kagan has an open mind on the gay issue. The question is not whether there is a constitutional right but whether she intends to create one. The Obami believe firmly in two principles from which all others follow. They are (1) fairness trumps all else and (2) all groups, no matter how bizarre or momentary their existence, are morally equal. On immigration, the Obami ask “Why shouldn’t non-citizen Latins have their turn?” Ms. Kagan will ask “Why shouldn’t gays have their turn?” Will you find a Republican with intelligence and courage enough to question Kagan on theses matters? No.
“But she clearly believes it is a matter for the political process, not a constitutional right.”
I don’t trust Elena Kagan for a moment. She is a postmodernist Ivy League graduate. Kagan will most likely find some sort of excuse to justify supporting gay marriage. Never trust someone who is a progressive legal scholar. They consider the U.S. Constitution as a “living document”. What was true yesterday—may not be true today. The zeitgeist will lead us to new truths.
Obama has a reputation for treating conservatives fairly???
Since when?
Another perfect little postmodernist. It’s, well … perfect! The long journey towards being totally frakked continues unabated.
Let’s see, she has no real world job experience. She has spent the majority of her career in academia and yet has published very, very little. She has very little court experience of any kind and has served only a year as the Soliciter General. No one knows what she thinks about anything but we’re told how “brilliant” she is without a shred of evidence.
Face it, she’s Obama in drag.
They outrage is real. Kagan is the perfect Bush nominee.
She’s all about indefinite detention. Look again at the 6th Amendment.
She’s all about limiting free speech. Look again at the 1st Amendment.
But nice stawman set up.
Next.
We can’t tell if she’s liberal enough. That’s so frustrating!
Yes. Believe it or not, when normal functioning people of any political ideology evaluate a member of the SCOTUS, they use the ideology that they’ve taken the time to adopt as a way of evaluating them. Perhaps you refer to some deeper portion of your intellect, where your lizard brain sniffs at the person in question to determine if they are of your tribe or not. Don’t blame other people, however, for using their intellect, simply because you’ve let yours atrophy.
“The only thing that matters to liberals about Kagan is that she is being appointed by a Democratic president.”
Actually the thing that really matters to liberals is that she supports their SCOTUS-legislated “right” to butcher unborn children.
And kudos to Ken Besig @ 2 for his astute analysis.
As John Stewart said on his show, “Elena Kagan is just like harriet Meyers, except for the dumb part.”
Irony may be humorous, but tu quoque is still a fallacy when being used as an actual argument.
Some people make the mistake of using Stewart’s rather heavily biased but still occasionally funny comedy show as a source of news. It is not a substitute.
Also, on the subject of irony:
While working for Clinton in 1995, Kagan set down the “Kagan test” for SCOTUS nominees, in which she said prospective candidates should already be judges and have proven they’ve mastered the craft of being a judge.
I somehow doubt that bit of humor will be showing up in John Stewart’s routine, though.
One silver lining about Kagan is that as Solicitor General she advised Obama about the constitutionality of Obamacare so when it goes up in front of the Supreme Court she will have to recuse herself.
You’re assuming that they will even hear the case. But if they do Kagan will not have to recuse herself. It would depend on how the case is presented.
Brooks rhymes with Crooks
Frum rhymes with Dumb
Klein rhymes with Whine
And what you see is the media members’ idiot index chiming-in like clowns. Kagan is certainly qualified to be on the SCOTUS. After all she’s tried a few cases and lost them all. She sure fits-in with the White House all right. Anything is possible when you don’t know what you’re doing.
It’s easy to see why some would be disappointed in Kagan, as she clearly occupies a more centrist position than the partisans on the Democratic left. The muted criticism that has actually been offered is quite tame, really. Calling the response from the left “Outrage” is clearly hyperbole on the part of the author, but understandable as a way to draw traffic.
The truth is that Kagan is a middle of the road legal mind, who has been careful to maintain a professional and impartial demeanor. Opposing her nomination is a fool’s errand, and it is likely that she will be approved by a similar margin as Sotomayor. Given the radical shift rightward in the court’s opinions after the departure of Justice O’Connor, and the authoritarian tendencies of the conservative wing of the court, Kagan is Obama’s attempt to salvage some Constitutional principles from the current mess.
The plain fact is that the court is paralyzed and trapped in the grip of Justice Kennedy, and the Roberts court has used the opportunity to push a radically corporatist agenda that undermines the basic rights of persons in this country. Until a member of the right wing of the court comes up for replacement, Kagan can only hope to slow the advance of the activist conservatives.
It is interesting to see the absurd charade of protest from the GOP, when the nature of the problem with the SCOTUS is so clear to so many.
Peace.
DS
Activist conservatives? You mean upholding the Constitution is “activist”?
The Robert’s court upholds corporations’ rights above individual rights?
Dude, you must be for legalizing marijuana too.
You mean like George Schultz and William F. Buckley?
Prohibition is not a position consistent with individual freedom and personal liberty.
Last time I checked, there was no mention of marriage, same-sex or otherwise, in the Constitution. The Constitution is not an enumeration of rights granted to the citizenry; it is an enumeration of the limited powers of government.
Those who are against same-sex marriage should consider this fact and what it means.