Kagan Can Be a Justice, Though She’s Never Been a Judge?
President Obama has selected Elena Kagan, the solicitor general of the United States, as his nominee to replace the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. From her official bio:
Kagan came to Harvard Law School as a visiting professor in 1999 and became Professor of Law in 2001. While on the faculty, Kagan taught administrative law, constitutional law, civil procedure, and seminars on issues involving the separation of powers. She was appointed Dean of the Law School in 2003.
Aside from employment as an associate in a law firm, her functions before becoming the solicitor general were primarily academic, and later administrative. The closest she ever came to getting judicial experience came when she served as a law clerk to Judge Abner Mikva of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1986 to 1987, and as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the Supreme Court the next year. Though it is not the function of a law clerk working for a judge or justice to reflect one’s own ideological views, but to channel those of the employer — like an attorney representing a client:
Kagan called a memorandum that she wrote as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall “the dumbest thing I ever read.” “Let me step back a little if I may and talk about my role in Justice Marshall’s chambers. … We wrote memos on literally every single case in which there was a petition. … I don’t want to say there is nothing of me in these memos, but I think in large measure these memos were written in the context of — you’re an assistant for a justice, you’re trying to facilitate his work, and to enable him to advance his goals and purposes as a justice. … I was a 27-year-old pipsqueak and I was working for an 80-year-old giant in the law and a person who — let us be frank — had very strong jurisprudential and legal views … and he was asking us in the context of those cert. petitions to channel him, and to think about what cases he would want the Court to decide.”
Kagan became solicitor general of the United States in March of 2009. The principal function of the solicitor general is to advocate the government’s position before the Supreme Court. Since she assumed that office, she appears to have argued at least three cases there.
Her first oral argument before the Court was to defend the government’s position in Citizens United, which a majority of the Court rejected, five to four. That should not count against her — advocates, like judges, have to go with what facts and law they have, and unlike judges, advocates have to represent the interests of their clients as best they can. I should know, as I’ve won some cases and lost others, but of course could never create facts or cite non-existent law. It is not Kagan’s fault that she had what turned out to be a losing hand in Citizens United.
Service as solicitor general for just over one year is nothing to be sneezed at, however it is not “judicial experience.” They are radically different jobs.
Representing the United States Government before the Supreme Court is little different from representing another client. Eric Holder, the attorney general, has said that she did a good job as solicitor general and would be an excellent Supreme Court justice. I think this is a flawed correlation.
Despite her academic background, she has written few learned articles (cf. President Obama), and she has apparently written little which might provide useful insight into her legal philosophy. According to this article:
I read everything Elena Kagan has ever published. It didn’t take long: in the nearly 20 years since Kagan became a law professor, she’s published very little academic scholarship — three law review articles, along with a couple of shorter essays and two brief book reviews.
However, according to this article, she has written a bit more than that and her views have changed over time. I generally don’t think highly of people whose views remain static as they get older and gain more experience; it takes a bit of wisdom to distinguish the value of our youthful ideas.
CBS News reported that President Obama’s new Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan will be the “first openly gay justice,” pleasing much of Obama’s liberal base. But after complaints by an anonymous White House staffer that parts of the report were not yet publicly confirmed, the CBS reporter updated the post to say “I have to correct my text here to say that Kagan is apparently still closeted — odd, because her female partner is rather well known in Harvard circles.” The CBS report has now been pulled, after The Washington Post repeated the CBS report, and the White House denials, but criticized CBS policy, saying “most major news organizations have policies against ‘outing’ gays or reporting on the sex lives of public officials unless they are related to their public duties.” The sudden media blackout on the ‘taboo topic’ is ironic, since Kagan’s private sex life already has, and will directly impact her public Supreme Court decisions.
“…most major news organizations have policies against… reporting on the sex lives of public officials unless they are related to their public duties.”
Bwahahaha.
Maybe if said public officials are Democrats that’s true.
There have been a number judges on the SC who have had no prior judicial experience prior to this appointment.
On the other hand, I’ve just read a report of how Kagan participated in whitewashing plagarism charges leveled against prominant liberals at Harvard. That’s not the kind of attitude towards rules that you want from a SC justice.
Don’t forget how the Democrats told us that Clarence Thomas’s resume was too thin and that he didn’t have enough judicial experience to be appointed to the Supreme Court.
They were right. He is the least competent judge on the court.
there is no constitutional requirement that a supreme court justice needs even
to be an attorney.
personally, i think that after leaving the presidency, President Reagen would
have made a great chief justice.
This is true. But in today’s world a SCJ should have some form of gravitas on which to ground their “fair” judgment skills, don’t you think? It seems we have done nothing but appoint one ideologue, on one side of the political spectrum or the other, to these positions for decades. The point was made herein that democrats sniveled that Clarence Thomas’ resume was too thin in the ‘judicial cred’ section to be appointed. Now, I don’t know, but it seems if what is good for the goose is good for the gander. But I predict that GOP (RINOs) will pass this selection with little opposition. They are just as socialist as the ‘democrats’ but aren’t as “out” about it in public.
If she hides her sexual preferences, what else does she hide.
A person is what they are if they can’t face it then they are not truly all they can be as a person in charge of the laws of our land. When you live a secret you are subject to many types of personal blackmail.
It will do not good for anyone to bring up anything about this woman. she will be put into place just as obama wants and we will not fight back not matter what we learn about her and her decisions and beliefs.
We are now the spineless Americans. Afraid to speak out should we be called racists and such.
Anne, Kagan’s sexual inclinations = red herring parlayed by MSM:
The problem with Kagan is not her Saphic inclinations, her Harvard, plagiarism inclined tenure (but we are talking about a completely fraudulent administration, don’t we?), or her odious jackets, but the fact…
… that she is a gross, “what’s personal is political” type who – God forbid! – if appointed, will immediately start working for the “The white race is the cancer is the of the world!”, ” Heather has two moms”, “One world- Amnesty for 13 miilion wise illegals!” and “God damn America!” ideology which is fueling Obama’s regrettable presidency -
That is the real issue with Kagan -
And Kagan must not get the appointment -
Elena Kagan appears to be just another poorly educated Harvard University “minority” student. She seems intellectually shallow and poorly read. Kagan and Obama have that in common along with their subtle leftism. Isn’t this getting ridiculous? When are we going to demand that these politically correct Ivy League graduates actually earn what they get in life? Universities like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are such scam operations.
Just watched on PBS a Gwen Iffel group engaged in praising Kagan’s perfection.
It was simply bizzare – five were they, and none found a single, little flaw in Kagan’s resume, career or judicial views (obscure as they are) -
Looks to me the the creeping coup continues, un-resisted -
You expect objectivity from PBS? PBS is nothing more than the propaganda wing of the Democrat party and various liberals causes.
Did an Ivy League school reject you or your children? What is it with you? I don’t want to say that you’re predictable, but you’re predictable. The rumor is that she was as smart as a whip from early on. But then, she went to an Ivy League school, so by your tortured logic, she CAN”T be smart. There’s another nasty rumor that she works hard , too. How can that be? Do you just make this stuff up?
The problem, Dwight, is that many of us are on to the fact that the bloom is off the prestige at most of the Ivy League schools; they are oversold, overrated, over-hyped, and have just produced several generations of utter wastrels who have all but bankrupted the economy, the legal profession, the courts, both houses of congress, and the presidency. In the humanities, in particular, the odor of mediocrity, political correctness and hoary old Marxist politics is still as pungent as it was 30 years ago; the departments are filled with lightweights and frauds, and grade inflation and social advancement for favored identity groups and races is practically institutionalized at this point. By and large, the idea that a top school suggests a whip-smart anything is a belief for people who don’t really have any critical acumen of their own; like mistaking the word education for the condition of being educated.
The trouble with your analysis is that as a Teacher, I saw the quality of student that got into the Ivies. If you are talking book-learning or SAT scores, they got the smartest. Have you paid any attention to the college admissions rat race recently? Maybe you are arguing that once these smart people get accepted that they then take humanities courses and become stupid. Or maybe your point would have to be that the kind of intelligence this segment of society has is not one that can start a small business, just be a government employee or a Goldman-Sachs bond trader.
So where have all the smart people gone? The meme here is that they have become “elitists” and are no longer smart. The smart people are now….. where? Help me out here.
The people who go to Ivy league colleges aren’t smart. They just keep telling themselves that they are until they finally believe it.
The smart ones show up throughout the society, from community colleges to state schools to elite universities; they do not necessarily cluster in any particular place, contrary to what US News would suggest. The really smart ones figure out that their professors are counterfeit, and that the real currency is down the hall at the library; once that occurs, the college becomes largely ornamental. Who needs a second-rate leftist prof in tennis shoes when you can read Jacques Barzun?
As for becoming dim at college, yes, that happens all the time; people with talent but no discernment or character become pretty much like the last batch of lit-crit bores that preceded them. Bad departments with bad ideas create a certain type of student, soon to be a certain type of teacher. Walk the halls at an Ivy and look around closely; the entire place is suffused with bad taste, but is entirely oblivious to it. One day, our Balzac will arrive, and he will put his thumb in the eye of this overdue target.
True, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that the Ivies feed their students’ egos to the point where their arrogance outweighs their abilities, making them a net liability to society.
Myth Buster made the point I was itching to make as I read through the comments. An appeal to ego is a means to manipulate. I was in the ACE program in school many years back. Pampering our ego, they fed us humanistic philosophy. And, yes there is a dumbing down that takes place in the brain washing process. You are not supposed to think outside the party line, so your ability to consider all the possibilities becomes limited.
Dwight, don’t confuse smarts with wisdom. A smart brain is only a faster processor. What is important is what you feed the computer. Give me a slow computer with common sense any day over a fast computer devoid of practicality. There is often an imbecility of intelligence.
OK, I’ll try not to confuse smarts with wisdom, the latter which often comes after painful experience for smart and dumb alike. I suspect that your version of wisdom is that it is found in those who come to conclusions similar to your own. I am a big fan of common sense myself, which is why I spent most of my time around here making common sense responses to a lot of the over-the-top blather. A lot of the stuff here is dramatic hyperbole, which may be wisdom in your book, but not in mine.
I think that Kagan is a smart pragmatist, not a radical, and seems to be a reasonable choice. When I hear PJM blather about how she’s not really smart, actually can’t be because she is Ivy League or has never been a judge, well, that may get some of you all fired up, but it’s not common sense and it’s not wisdom.
Calling one’s prejudices “common sense,” does necessarily lend them any heft. Plenty of men try to walk the middle by posing as reasonable men, neither inclined to one side of the other, but that is usually just another pose, a cultivated stance to appear evenhanded while other men do the hard lifting in the fray. Personally, I’ll take passion and hyperbole over lukewarm.
So let me get this straight; you actually prefer the heavy-lifting hyperbolizers on the left over the moderates posing in their stances in the middle?
How about this? One can have a stance, even a studied stance, essentially for balance. Think of baseball or golf. There is not just heavy lifting, but also wild swinging to be dealt with. I have made the point a number of times that one’s stance has as much to do with one’s particular character and personality as it does with their politics.
Traditional conservatives know the value of a balanced stance, because it comes from experience, more than simply passion and belief. Many New Age conservatives are more into swinging hard and if they miss, or slice the ball into the woods, oh well, they were swinging hard. Wheeeeee!
Where the liberals will fight to prevent a republican nominee from the bench..the right, will bluster ..but let her in despite her short comings. Republicans are wieners (a political term)and the opposite of liberals when it comes to fighting for what they want.
The personal qualifications and backgrounds do not seem to matter anymore. We are being dumbed down on a daily basis.
What did Obama ever preside over before becoming the prez? There are hundreds if not thousands of twenty something marxist policy wonks with their tongues hanging out to write Kagan’s opinions or Obama’s fundamental change bills. Fab lefty potentates can’t be bothered with details…or knowing anything, for that matter. They’ve got the vision, the CORRECT vision. All else is as naught to the grandeur of their design for us peasants.
This is the ultimate “stealth” candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court. Ms. Kagan has no paper trail of appellate opinions since she has never been a judge. She has almost no record as a private lawyer which would at least have given an indication of the type of advocacy she favors. Her past is “invisible” much like the life of the guy who is appointing her. What she does have is the social cachet of being a Harvard law dean and (no doubt) ironclad connections to the East Coast academic elite. She can enthuse over the Federalist Society all she wants but she would never have gotten the nod if she really believed in any of the society’s principals. What she appears to be is a skilled academic schmoozer who never says the wrong thing and cultivates the right people. The lack of a judical pedigree would be fatal to a Republican nominee but Senate Dems and the media will give roll out the red carpet for someone like this.
Extract Kagen and insert Obama – along with job description and viola!
No wonder Obama admires her so much.
Do we need a Gay Supreme Judge ? Seems it’s either Gay’s or Marxists or both in the same package under this administration.
I expect a thorough investigation by the judiciary committee, and then a reasonable amount of time for debate, but I see nothing so outrageous that it would justify a filibuster. The Senate taking its time, on the other hand, is a great idea. Barring anything truly outrageous being revealed during the hearings, she should become a justice sometime in September, just in time for the Senate to move on to voting on next year’s appropriations bills, leaving little time for anything else on Obama’s agenda prior to the elections.
I know little of the woman but am now personally unimpressed with any Ivy credential short of medicine. Forty years of Harvard, Princeton and Yale grads running the country into the ground in D.C. has convinced me we should be looking elsewhere for expertise.
What little I do know speaks of judicial activism. Sounds like a perfect puppet for Obama.
When you elect Democrats with the power to appoint or confirm judges, nasty consequences ensue.
If the Senate Republicans want to demonstrate their commitment to principle over etiquette, here’s a new chance. Voters, take note.
There’s no way in hell a republican senator would dare to oppose (yet another) Jewish appointment to the supreme court for fear that AIPAC will bankroll his opponent in November. Very shrewd move by President Emanuel.
According to this article,
I wish I could have dealt with her responses in the article, but hadn’t found them until late this morning; my only excuse is that my internet went down yesterday evening and didn’t revive until mid-morning, minutes before I submitted the article.
I have thus far skimmed her questionnaire responses, and agree with her positions on many I have read. Nevertheless, I remain disappointed that she has zero judicial experience, and hope that she will at the very least be questioned extensively on her views as to why that should not be a matter of grave concern. Perhaps there will be an opportunity to elicit the views of others on that point. She should also be asked whether, and if so why and how, she has modified any of her views as expressed in her questionnaire responses.
She is most likely a lesbian; she may for all I know to the contrary be a thespian as well. Judging by her photograph, she is no beauty. From my perspective, these three observations are equally pertinent to her judicial qualifications: not at all. I addressed this point at least in passing here two months ago.
“There is no constitutional right to same-sex marriage.”
Elena Kagan will most assuredly find one way or another to justify same sex marriage. She perceives the Constitution as a living document. It’s supposedly evolving and all that other good stuff. Also, she will likely provide mealy mouth responses during her confirmation hearing. Kagan will squeeze the truth, bend it, and do all sorts of nasty things to it. An Ivy League law postmodernist graduate learns how to do “the Bill Clinton” who claimed “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”
What a coincidence. I no sooner uploaded my previous comments when I found out that Ann Althouse and I are on the same page:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2010/05/elena-kagan-said-there-is-no-federal.html
Althouse is reading my mind. I had better start wearing my aluminum cap once again to protect my thoughts.
“There is no constitutional right to same-sex marriage.”
I would note that there is also no Constitutional right to marriage at all. Nor should there be.
payback for keeping obamas university records under wraps.
Yes, but she stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night!
Who cares if she is a lesbian or not ??
Has she got the level for this prestigious and important position or not ???
Thispresident displays his lack of competence daily since the beginning of his mandate
Will Congress ever impeach that troll ???
And I do not give a damn about the melanin content into the deepest layers of his skin !
I could give a rats about her sexual choices. I am concerned only about one thing; does she follow the US Constitution as written by the Founders and by its original intent? Obv. she doesn’t, and that’s why Obama chose her.
I used to enjoy reading and commenting here, in PJM; since, however, you consistently have been censoring in a wholesale manner comments concerning the Jewish infighting and BHO’s eligibility issues, I have stopped, and will no longer read your blogs. Sorry to say, but this conservative movement is dying out by such actions. I could have sent this message via e-mail, but it’s only fair for your readers to realize the extent of carnage taking place here. Shame on you.
And a final point: this in-fighting and intollerance is the real reason why we’ve got BHO in the WH, and this two judicial nobodies (Sotomayor and Keegan) being appointed to the SCOTUS.
What’s all the fuss over this Pinko?
Is he a Commie willing to undermine our constitution? That is my concern.
The first Affirmnative Action administration.
‘The facts and the law should be dispositive’.
Sigh.. I agree. Though this is hardly the case in our society. For judges of all facets use the ‘interpretative’ as their decision maker..
Lesbian? I can care less. Though CBS, a ‘surprisingly left leaning news organization’ happens to care. I truly can’t tell the difference between the alphabet ‘news’ outlets and TMZ, Entertainment Tonight..
Then again, ‘same *hit different smell’.
Electing a person who has not ONE day as Judge to the biggest of big leagues of court in the U.S.
What’s the difference, our identity-politic, qualifications be *amned, brain-dead masses elected a U.S. President with NO Executive experience amongst other shortcomings..
In the immortal words of the ‘illustrious’ Bret Michaels – ‘What the Hell is Going on’? (from Poison’s ‘Unskinny Bop’) oy!
Elena Kagan is a wonderful choice for SCOTUS. Not only will she be confirmed but she will prove to be an intellectual powerhouse who will swing the 5-4 decisions her way. Hard working American families will have yet another individual who will stand up for their interests and not the corporations that line the pockets of Republican prostitutes. This is a great day for America! Be afraid conservatives, be very afraid.
Somebody forgot the /sarc tag.
Why be afraid if I’m Conservative? My biggest concern is one is of the four Conservative judges dropping dead of a M.I. before we move Obama back to a job he’s qualified – community activist and guest instructor at Pinko U.
At best, it’s a wash trading one potential activist judge for the insufferable John Paul Stevens of 30+ years. John will soon be swapping stories with old Harry Blackmun repeating the words forever and a day, “Woe be those who substitute darkness for light.”
It’s gonna be a rough eight-years for you Obama haters. The conservative rumor mill in ramping up again. The Republicans know how to play to their base, the toothless uneducated bath water drinkers on dirt farms who will believe anything their like-minded preachers tell them. So the Republicans will attack Kagan on moralistic tripe like this sexuality rumor and on eastern elitism from Harvard. The bottom line is that Kagan is a woman with an education. That disqualifies her for any position in America according to conservatives and the way they view Amurikka.
And just think, it was last week we were being accused of being executives at the tea parties that only cared about our own pocket book. Not bad for the dirt farm.
See you at the polls in November gladiator.
Gee – What a gusher of venom from such a little troll. Apparantly you haven’t traveled in the U.S. outside the confines of your own basement. You would find that there is a large and, dare I say it, “diverse” world out there where Republicans, red state types and even the odd citizen from south of the Mason-Dixon line would receive you with sophisticaiton, kindness and pity.
At the risk of violating the sensible stricture on “not feeding the animals” we should note that there was quite a rumpus was President Bush proposed the appointment of the equally uninspiring Harriet Miers to the Court. The Dems and the lackey media couldn’t bellow loud enough about Ms. Miers lack of experience, lack of a judicial background etc. As I said above Ms. Kagan could be the chairperson of the Cambridge chapter of the John Birch Society for all we know. And since we don’t know we have to depend on the confirmation process to find out. This involves a lot of questionning that is at best unpleasant and at worse vicious. But before your get your panties in a knot you might want to cast your mind back to the give-no-quarter confirmation hearings of Bork, Thomas, Alito and Roberts. It was the Left that decided to make the confirmation process into a substitute for war during the hearings on Judge Bork. That continued with a vengeance in the case of Justice Thomas. If the hearings become ugly, and they probably will, your side has only themselves to blame.
Elena Kagan is no Harriet Meyers. In fact, many of the Republicans who voted to confirm her as Solicitor General will have a hard time explaining in detail why they plan to now vote against her. However, I suspect, that several will cross over to support her (Collins, Snowe, Brown, etc.). President Obama made a very shrewd choice here and I know that’s driving you folks mad as hell, because we all know she will be confirmed no matter how much you yell kick and scream. It is worth mentioning that it is perhaps a plus that Kagan is from outside the bench. We need more diversity in terms of life experience on the court and right now we don’t
Oh, and Tex Taylor, I think you and your chest thumping battalion of seasoned citizens (who suck up Social Security and rant about governmnet takeovers, etc.) are more bark than bite. The Dems will surely lose seats come Nov. but not hardly as many as you think. You see, your demographic is dying off (mad old white people). As they croak, they are being systematically replaced by young liberals and people of color (Asians, Latinos, etc.). The future (long term) is with the Democrats. The GOP and their sheeple only care about the next news cycle. We will see you in November. I have many, many, Novembers ahead of me. How many do you have?
Don’t you just love the way liberals revel in their stereotypes of what anyone who disagrees with them is like.
Be a liberal, it’s easier than thinking.
Really? How do we know any of this? It seems pretty obvious that the chief reason for her selection is her complete lack of a paper trail. She obviously has produced no appellate opinions, has little or no experience in private practice and has published few, if any, scholarly articles for the law reviews. For all we know she could be the second coming of William Howard Taft. No doubt she is totally reliable for this administration in the sense that she comes from the soup of elite east coast academia and shares all the standard views. However there is nothing right now that would disclose her views on anything.
You seem to be the sort who follows the motto of Boxer the Horse from “Animal Farm.” Only in your case the creed is “Obama is always right.” Always remember what happened to Boxer.
G, re your Comments # 19: You say, “this in-fighting and intolerance is the real reason why we’ve got BHO in the WH. . . .” I am not sure that I understand your meaning and hope that I have not taken it out of context. However, the quoted segment embodies one of the thoughts I suggested here. There are some, perhaps only a few, points on which most conservatives seem to agree. If we want to take back the Congress this year and the presidency in 2012, it would be best to focus on those points.
I, for one, am dismayed at the thought of a nominee who’s experience is all academic, and not in the real world you and I live in. Academics make sweeping decisions that affect millions, but they do it in a stark, strict inhuman sense – we are not people, we are numbers, some gray amorphous electorate.
I had a new boss that was inexperienced and way out of his league. He selected one inexperienced person after another and I thought it was an insecurity trait. Still do.
William Rehnquist never served a day as a judge before becoming a SCOTUS Justice either.
That’s right, one of the most conservative of Justices had never been a judge before he was nominated.
Let’s let the lefties do the “do as I say, not as I do” double-standards, hmmm?
That’s true but don’t forget that Rehnquist became an Associate Justice in 1971. This was well before the confirmation process degenerated into the circus that it became in the cases of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. (Judge Bork’s outstanding record on the Court of Appeals became one of the chief weapons used against him during the confimraiton process.) Harriet Miers had a vita as lightweight as Ms. Kagan’s and she was blown out of the water before she even got out of port.
We have an Ivy League educated closeted lesbian with virtually no written record of opinion an NO experience as a judge. No doubt there will be plenty willing to presume for convenience sake that BHO was simply shooting from the hip and mistakenly hit a moderate or a constitutional constructionist. It is certainly would be less work to do so.
If any of what I heard on Beck’s radio show this morning makes it into the mainstream discussion, there will be plenty to talk about in her confirmation hearings.
Question: Can an unabashed socialist credibly swear to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution?
My sense is no, they can not. Our constitution lays out a very clear and limited federal role that must be breached anew with each expansion in the federal roll. Socialism, simply put, is a one word definition for the repeated breaching of that constitutional roll.
sure…obama did it…
There is always something of the writer in what he or she writes. Put more broadly, there is always something of the person in what he or she communicates.
Given Elena Kagan is about as popular as HIV-AIDS with military recruiters and free speech advocates, she will express herself via all that she decides.
In other words, another “blank piece of paper”, because she doesn’t have to seal papers to resort to being called that.
Thanks for an excellent, detailed article, Dan. I’m not much concerned about her lack of experience as a judge. In fact, I think that could be an advantage in some respects. Sometimes, looking at what the Court does, I wonder if we wouldn’t be better off having at least one justice who’s never been a judge or even a lawyer. Just some guy, maybe an auto mechanic or an assembly line worker who has read the Constitution and takes it seriously. Just joking…mostly.
The more I read about Kagan, the more I think she may surprise some folks by being less liberal than expected. Wouldn’t be the first time a justice has been different from what was anticipated.
What I hope doesn’t happen during Kagan’s confirmation hearings are attacks on her personal life. There’s no justification for that. But given the way the Senate works these days, it wouldn’t be surprising.
We could do worse than to have an “ordinary man” sitting on the Supreme Court, but just like Obama I fear that a lack of real-world experience is more telling than a lack of experience as a professional judge.
This person would not have been my first choice as a supreme court nominee, though, she is basically of sound mind, hence, should be successful in her bid. Once again, this president is daring the right wing to fall on its sword by opposing her, thereby increasing the dems vote count in several key states in November. No, I am not accusing the dems of being sinister, but it makes me wonder…this tells me that this President is a very schroud politician…indeed…. now what did I do with my old GOP cigar hat?
Well, we know one thing: she believes in the right to devour cheeseburgers.
That was funny!
As long as experience is shunned and doesn’t count any more, appoint her to be the new pilot of Airforce One! Obama didn’t need experience to run the last super power, an airplane should be easy for a neophyte.
I’m old and not American. But, I would think that Sammy Davis Junior (here come de judge, here come de judge) would be a better candidate. At least he had some judge’s robes and he could dance. Not sure if MS Kagan can say the same on either count. Pity that Sammy is dead.
That was Flip Wilson…and, yes, I am that old to remember that (shudder)
A straight (pardon the term) form-the-bench liberal ideological legislator, no judicial experience with actually dealing with people and what the law means to confuse her aims whatsoever!
The bias towards appointing judges to the Supreme Court has been mostly a relatively recent development. I kind of wish a non-lawyer scholar would be appointed: Supreme Court decisions have been increasingly more about philosophy than absolute law in recent decades. And the Supreme Court is suppose to be the “big picture” court in looking at all laws in context of both what the founding fathers intended with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and how overall law has evolved as society has evolved. Recent Supreme Court appointees have shown little of the scholarly chops that their early predecessors have shown, and few will be remembered, if at all, a 100 years from now in a positive way.
How NAIVE can you get. Elena Kagan has MORE EXPERIENCE for this job than anyone.
1. She is a Lesbian. This insures that her liberalism will never change, and is beyond any kind of introspection. Liberalism is automatic and unconscious right down to the deepest layers of her psyche.
2. She has never had any real world experience. From sheltered prep school, to Harvard to Harvard Law School to Obama political appointee. There is nothing in her head to question the ruling ideology or to know anything different.She has been indoctrinated from birth like any Commissar, Janissary, or Eunuch of the Court..she is a beyond suspect and will perform her function without question.
No experience? Nonsense…her job is to destroy the Constitution without flinching. There is no better candidate in the land.
This is nothing more than a Political PAYOFF for burying Obama’s academic history and it ensures if the challenge comes to the Supreme Court that it will stay buried.
Judicial experience is not required here, but it certainly helps in weeding out the squirrely types. Other types of experience are suitable in that regard, such as having been both a state attorney general (which is a MAJOR legal administrative position) AND a state governor (to weed out any remaining squirrely types who’ve been adequate state attorney generals).
IMO Kagan is not qualified in legal experience or life experience, and I suspect her intellectual horsepower. The really smart law school deans I know here in California – Erwin Cherminskty at UC Irvine and John Eastman, former dean of Chapman University Law School (he is a candidate for the GOP nomination for California Attorney General), are both way smarter than Kagan, and both of them are great legal scholars who are qualified for the U.S. Supreme Court. I don’t like Cherminsky’s politics at all but there is no denying his brilliance.
The ONLY good thing I’ve heard of about Kagan is her excellent temperment, which is more related to the duties of a trial or appellate judge.
Hmmm…She was the Dean of Harvard Law School and therefore is partly responsible for keeping Obamao’s school records hidden from public view so she must have something on the Marxist One.
Is it just me, or does this hag look like Chris Farley in drag ?
When I saw a pic of Elena Kagan this morning on Yahoo I could of swore it was Brandon Frasier. I was like WTF was Obama thinking. Just saying.
If Kagan was incredibly smart, she’d have a reputation for it, just as Cherminsky and Eastman do. IMO she is a Democratic Harriet Meiers.
I suspect that Myers would have been accepted, if she did not have such close personal and professional connections to GWB. The meme of cronyism mushroomed, especially on the right, especially since she was also suspected of being a centrist. If some equivalent groundswell does not develop on the left against Kagan, she’s in, but confirmation hearings and all that surrounds them provide decent political entertainment for one quarter of the country. We just won’t be hearing Biden babble (at the hearings anyway) any more.
Elena Kagan, Gay Justice?
Just as it was with Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan as replacement for SCOTUS Associate Justice John Paul Stevens was a done deal as soon as President Obama nominated her. Kagan, a Janet Napolitano lookalike, is a shoo-in.
The Democrat Party’s 59 seat Senate majority insures it. Republicans would need an unlikely unanimous agreement of its 41 members to filibuster her nomination.
In addition, Sotomayor was a woman and a Hispanic, Kagan is a woman and, apparently, a lesbian. What else did they need going for them? It was payback time in both instances. Two prime Obamian constituencies were in line for some recognition, the Hispanic-Latino community and the gay-lesbian community, and they’ve now gotten it.
However, why the White House became all exercised over a CBS online story that outed Kagan as “the first openly gay justice” was baffling when it hit the fan three weeks ago: Then she was only on the list of possible nominees and not yet even on the short list but why all the perturbation?
Did the Obamians consider open or hidden lesbianism a negative? . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1674)
There’s a pretty good article in the Wall Street Journal that rebuts the charge that Kagan is anti-military based on issues associated with ROTC recruiting when she was Dean of Harvard Law School.
SCOTUS justices are able to be removed from office, and should be if they overstep the bounds. They aren’t part of some Roman-style inviolate priesthood. They’re just judges. And not well vetted or selected ones at that. Congress has power over them, and so do the citizens of the USA, who, as ultimate human authority under the Constitution, can most certainly remove their SCOTUS judges, or anyone else in the system. The citizen is the only king in the American system, despite what those who would engineer consent and enslave the people might claim otherwise.
I advocate that Elena Kagan should just be appointed without tiresome hearings, it will show the world (particularly the Muslim world) that the US respects some females so much that they—like others I could name—need no particular merit to be rewarded with the highest positions. However, I do suggest that there be confirmation hearings for her clerks, since they will be the ones writing her opinions and decisions.
wrt same sex marriage, aren’t people asking the wrong question?
Where does The Constitution give the federal government the power to regulate and license marriage to begin with?
Check your IRS Tax codes for the answer to this question…
The thing that worries me most about the nominating process under the Dems, is their insistence that judges appreciate the affect of law on ordinary people.
This is not the a judges job. Their job is to rule whether a law is constitutional, or whether it conflicts with other laws. That’s it.
It is the job of the legislature to judge whether a laws impact on people is justified or not. If a law has a bad impact, the people can tell their legislators to repeal it. If the legislators refuse, the people can replace them at the next election. Sooner if recall applies.
I guess that this means that even YOU or I could be a “justice, never having been one. What is this brain dead POTUS thinking? Where in the world does his “intellect’ come from? He makes absolutely no sense and spends like a drunken sailor. Those questions not withstanding, it seems pretty clear that he isn’t interested in pursuing ‘American’ solutions, but is hell bent on establishing Marxist style communism. Argue the point all you wish, the evidence is overwhelming. Even a third grade educated person can see that.
I am opposed to the nomination of any Academic to a real Job that has any real consequences. That is if this person did not have a real job in the real world for at least 10 years. As a professional in business for 40 years I have experienced the garbage that these Academic produce. Graduates that come out of the universities are totally useless. They are full of hot air which they acquire from their Professors and the firms that they join have to invest heavy money to teach and train them.
Nominating Elana Kagan to the Supremes is like asking Roseanne Barr to sing the national anthem.
If Roseanne Barr’s July 25, 1990 rendition of our national anthem was a slap in the face to anyone who respects the American flag, Obama’s nomination of Elana Kagan for the Supreme Court is a thumbing of his nose at the American people a thousand times worse.
Ms. Kagan’s not just out of tune. She’s out of tune with the values of America.
Not just one or two. Not just the other side of the aisle values, but the values of most every American who wants the land of the free to remain free. And safe. Her nomination amounts to Barack running his fingernails across a chalkboard and trying to argue it’s like listening to Handel’s Messiah. The abomination who hates middle America and demonstrates every Tea Bagger chance to show his utter disdain for every ideal on which this nation was founded simply delights in rubbing our national nose in the dirt to remind America that 53% of voters elected this national disgrace. Everything this political pervert does is designed to humiliate those who love this nation with all their heart. And reject Marxism. In fact, having this miscreant resident President is like having a football coach who wants the other team to win by giving them all your plays. Make no mistake, Barack has surrounded himself with such a diverse group of corrupt people that he’s making Chicago politics seem almost tame by comparison.
When it comes to nose rubbing in the dirt, you may be interested to know that Kagan’s been doing it to the U.S. military for years. She led the unconstitutional charge to kick military recruiters off the Harvard campus.
Not far behind Kagan’s hatred for the U.S. military and the troops that comprise it is her hated for capitalism and free enterprise. The counter-balance, of course, is her love of Socialism, about which she’s written many praise-filled articles, while lamenting the drubbing it’s taken over the years. That she’s a closet big “c” Communist I have no doubt, but also no proof because where her real allegiances lie, her lying apparently begins. That she’s never been an American judge, but judges everything American to be bad qualifies Kagan to fit right in at Harvard. But not as a member of the highest court in the land. In the judge role, Kagan is more like a pedophile with a bunch of kindergartners.
Fact is, she’s a political clone of Barack Obama. She worships the law that announced open season on the unborn, making a mockery of the first and fourteenth amendments. Moreover, this leftist bully girl is a vengeful foe of the Constitution as it was intended and written. For evidence, check out her writings. Furthermore, in my humble opinion, anyone who votes to confirm her is literally advocating the overthrow of not only the Constitution, but also this government. Sotomayor was bad. But Kagan is worse. With her, we’re dealing with hard core extreme hatred of anything American. If any Republican votes to confirm this supreme pariah, a woman who hates the military with hate usually reserved for child molesters, give them your contempt forever; your vote, never. Let’s face it, Kagan is going to abuse the law every chance she gets. And she’s fixing to do it for a life term.
Obama is using the Supreme Court to fundamentally transform America. Kagan’s nomination is a national abomination.
Do you actually think about this stuff, or does it just come pouring out of you? If you were up in the pulpit, we might be able to see the spittle flying along with the wild gestures. There may be some in the choir behind you and the congregation in front of you, singing out “Amen,”but if I saw such a person coming on the sidewalk, I might head to the other side of the street (or more likely, the middle of it). At least you acknowledge to someone, “If I were talking to you personally the language would have been toned down; down to earth.” But hey, this is internet blather where we can all burp and fart to our heart’s content.
This would be a decent example of wild swinging, as opposed to heavy lifting.
Re Comment # 53, we disagree to some extent on Solicitor General Kagan’s qualifications. I find her lack of judicial experience unfortunate and find some of her ideological views, as I am coming to understand them, unfortunate as well.
However, as you note, President Obama is The One because he won the election in 2008. His coat tails brought along many Democrat members of the congress. Lots of people supported him and his party, and it now seems that quite a few of them regret the mistake. It would be unrealistic to expect President Obama to nominate someone much different from himself. It would also be unrealistic to expect a Democrat controlled Senate to fail to confirm his nominee, at least based on what is currently known about her.
If you don’t think Obama should be reelected, and I don’t think he should be, then do your best to see that he is defeated in November 2012. I intend to do so. If you think that the present congress is a national disgrace, then vote to change it this year and try to persuade others to do the same. I intend to to so.
Please see my article here on why the country needs to get back to the basics and how I think we can best accomplish it.
Ike appointed what he thought was a strict conservative with Earl Warren. Instead he got the daddy of all progressive jurists.
There is a chance that, to be on the Court, Kagen will dissemble on both sides of the isle, out of both sides of her mouth. There is a chance that, instead of the brain dead Sotomayor, we’ll get a John Marshall. Maybe.
But, on the greater probability that she is a complete aparatchik of the left wing of the Democrats and their odious agenda, it would be safer to filibuster her ass until after the November elections. If we get what we hope for, maybe Obama and she will reconsider the appointment. Maybe.
Personally, the next big news about SCOTUS I want to hear is that they have read the Bill of Indictment presented by the new blood of the House after January and that the Chief Justice will indeed preside at the Senate Impeachment trial. Franlkly, Obama’s impeccable Chicago credentials have led him right into the territory of High Crimes and Misdemeanors as President. Buyers remorse* until 2012 isn’t an adequate substitute for getting our Republic back from these loons.
*I did not vote for the Obama/Biden ticket and so do not have buyer’s remorse. My remorse is far worse, because the mob appears to have figured out that they really can vote themselves the national treasure. I see the end of liberty in this tyranny of bribed majorities.
Dan,
I’m more than a little embarrassed that you responded to my piece about Elana Kagan. If I were talking to you personally the language would have been toned down; down to earth. Regardless, you responded, and I appreciate that.
I also read your article about getting back to basics. Not only are you an excellent writer, but here’s another point of agreement.
Although on every conservative issue big and small I find myself firmly on the expected side of the fence (from abortion to gays in the military and such), I agree we can’t afford to get stuck trying to change minds in the smaller issue areas because it probably would only cause animus and lead to one impasse after another. Not to mention waste a lot of time.
On the other hand, “less meddling by government, stronger national defense and respect for the Constitution” are stances most of us can embrace. I would include the extreme left disingenuousness of the Obama administration because, well, if one disagrees with that, then I can’t respect one’s capacity for critical thinking. A winning strategy from here on in, among other considerations, must blend a balance of attacks on our opponents and an explanation as to what we stand for. Any politician who says he stands for a generality like “hope and change” I would skewer as intellectually corrupt.
I also noted your reference to Allen West, someone who months ago I started pointing out could be the quarterback of my political team. But after writing a couple of articles about him, and sending him a couple of emails asking for a little more information, I received no response. Not even a “thanks for the email, but we get so many we can’t answer every one.” It reminded me of a long, thoughtful letter I wrote a year or so ago to Sarah Palin for which I received no response. There’s nothing I like more than a politician who’s well insulated from the people who support her. Let’s face it, an email takes almost no effort. Don’t respond to a friendly letter of support, and I wonder where your head is at.
Lastly, your article about the basics delved a bit into some strategic thought; possibly losing a battle but winning the war. If I were running the next Presidential campaign for the Republicans (and I was paid to work for Bush in 2004), I would launch a guerrilla marketing campaign that attacks the mainstream media, playing on its bias and basic Un-American positions, while making it the laughingstock of the nation. Lastly II, I believe the biggest surprise in 2014, assuming Obama runs, is that African Americans will vote the content of character rather than the color of skin. Seems to me, drawing out this basic duty of any American is doable.
What I don’t know is doable is for this nation to survive another almost three years of Obama. Just between you and me, I don’t think the United States can afford three more months of him. Somebody, tell me what the national debt is today. We need billboards all over America like the ones McDonald’s did that told us how many hamburgers were sold. We need real time billboards strategically placed in every city in America showing us the second by second astronomical rise of the Obama runaway debt.
On second thought, it might cause drivers to run their cars into a ditch, much like Obama’s doing to the nation.
Best Regards,
Rach
Thanks, Rachel for your response, which I appreciate. The main point in my view is that if we are going to accomplish anything useful we have to stick together on our basic values, and I gather that we agree substantially.
There is an old military maxim — conserve your ammunition and your troops for situations where they can do some good; don’t throw them away on what have become hopeless causes. Churchill, one of my few modern-day heroes and about as far from being a defeatist as I can imagine, had to make some extremely difficult decisions during WWII when the Japanese were driving Britain out of essential terrain in the Pacific. He had to make those decisions based on strategic priorities. It was essential to keep the Burma Road open into China, then an ally, and to secure Australia whose troops were needed elsewhere. General MacArthur was later forced to retreat to Australia, over his strong objections. We eventually won, but it was a tough fight and we had many losses. Churchill had to make lots of very difficult choices. The Brits had broken the German’s most secret code, and it was essential to keep the Germans from finding out. Apparently, they never did. Decoded intercepts revealed an imminent air attack on Coventry. Had Churchill mounted an abnormal defense of Coventry, the Germans would have realized that their code had been broken. That would have cost far more allied lives than the three thousand residents of Coventry who were killed during the German attack and who might have been saved. That may well have been the most difficult choice Churchill had to make during the war. Our situation is not yet that horrific but may become so, and if we are ultimately to prevail we need to make choices as well.
Parenthetically, as I re-read Churchill’s correspondence with his generals and with FDR, the contrast between President Obama and Prime Minister Churchill become ever more obvious and more offensive.
I too am disappointed at LTC West’s failure to respond to your e-mails, and can offer no explanation. It does thrown a slightly adverse light on him.
American voters need to pay attention to what will be going on with the hearings on concerning Kagan.
The people that will be commenting,questioning, are they up for re election? What do we think of them.
The ordeal with Sotomayor was a farce.
The media will unfortunately play a large biased (dishonest) part in this process. I wish I had pearls of wisdom for myself about what is going on in our country. The virtues of honesty seem to be non existent.
Kagan reminds me of California’s Rose Bird, who was appointed by Gov. Moonbeam Brown, Linda Rondstedt’s gay consort/beard.
Bird had absolutely ZE-RO judicial experience; she was simply a public defender, elevated to not just to the CA supreme court, but right up to Chief Justice. In her very first confirmation election, the voters threw her fat butt out.
Unfortunately, Kagan’s Crisco behind will be ensconced permanently, if the Republican RINO’s get bought and paid for. If they vote to confirm, it’s time to throw them out, too.
You don’t necessarily hire people because of their experience. You hire because of their potential. You don’t solve problems with just past experience, new factors are always in play.
Conservatives think just like what they are, conservatives. They keep running around like the Flintstones they are.
Kagan has the same qualifications as does Obama. None, but look at the job Obama’s doing.
If 5’3″ Elena Kagan is named to the Supreme Court, that will amount to the biggest injustice ever perpetrated on this nation.
Well, I’m glad to see that you can keep this possibility in perspective. Are you sure that it would not be possibly the greatest injustice in the history of the universe?
Jews, Catholics and SCOTUS
It’s long past time for America to consider the heretical idea of amending the Constitution and make new openings on the Supreme Court term-limited if not elective offices.
When the Founding Fathers devised the Constitution in the late eighteenth century, life expectancy at birth, thanks to rampant diseases, was a mere 24 years although, depending on where one lived, it could range up to 60 in New England, 45 in the Middle Colonies and 35 in the South. Those figures are according to Encyclopedia.com.
Averaging the 3 locales, a person could expect to live 46.7 years, with a little bit of luck. Today, thanks to the marvels of modern science and medicine, Americans can reasonably expect to live well into their seventies and beyond and late eighties and nineties are no longer unusual.
There is no possible way that James Madison . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1683)
Of course Kagen will be nominated to the Supreme Court. She possesses all the characteristics that resulted in Obama’s election. Including, never a real job outside the college campus, no substantive experience as a judge, publishing thesis and other papers denegrating the USA and lamenting not enough socialism, lacking experience practicing law but being “really Likeable”, never or seldom having any experience dealing with the “great unwashed” who actually keep jobs,support families, pay ever increasing taxes, salute the flag, and believe in the second ammendment and the actual Constitution as the basis for Supreme decisions.
And the spineless Republicans (Graham, Hatch, et al) will willingly accept her educated, evasive, obsequious explanations even before hearings are under way as they want to be first in sucking up to the liberals again to show their superior and high-minded “Goodness” and generosity even when being hit by a truck.
This again points out the necessity to vote out any and all incumbents for the only hope of restoring sanity, integrity, and America as a great and good country for the sake of your children and grandchildren. It is already too late to keep this grinning Socialist Troll off the Supreme Court for the next 50 years. WAKE UP !
The chances of her not being confirmed are minuscule. I agree completely that It is already too late to keep this grinning Socialist Troll off the Supreme Court for the next 50 years. WAKE UP !
I thought you had to be a judge in order to be a nomination for the Supreme Court.
I mean, it makes sense, right? To preside in the nation’s highest court, you need to know how to preside IN a court? …or at least have the qualifications to become a judge if there was a vacant bench?
I mean, if you don’t have to even be a lawyer to be a SCOTUS Justice, then it’s a good thing the Senate has to confirm it first!! It’s pretty amazing just how well the Framers saw into the future to see that.
…-but on the subject of the possibility of non-lawyer Justices, I think Ron Paul would do well in interpreting the Constitution.