Says Mike Allen at Politico:
The pick isn’t official, but top White House aides will be shocked if it’s otherwise. Kagan’s relative youth (50) is a huge asset for the lifetime post. And President Obama considers her to be a persuasive, fearless advocate who would serve as an intellectual counterweight to Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia, and could lure swing Justice Kennedy into some coalitions. The West Wing may leak the pick to AP’s Ben Feller on the later side Sunday, then confirm it for others for morning editions. For now, aides say POTUS hasn’t decided, to their knowledge.
Well, then,
Jeffrey Rosen, lick your wounds, and welcome Justice Kagan!
Posts
100 comments:
Not that there's anything wrong with that...
(ducks)
The new name for the SCOTUS will be the National Council of Catholics and Jews.
This sucks.
How can he ignore someone so simpatico to his world view as Lynn Stewart.
I mean it would be like he was on the Court if he named her.
I am very disappointed.
Indeed, I think the 'outrage' about the lesbian comments were a clear indicator that the White House is picking her.
Not only do they get points with the gay community, they don't really lose any with the rest of the country because she's not gay (I think). It will also drive wedges here and there.
While she's young and smart and liberal, the extra handling in the press of the 'outrage' indicates the White House can also play short term gain politics. And that's hardly a democrat only phenomenon.
I think she's radically extreme, but has been carefully planning to attempt to get a prominent position in the courts or Court for decades, and has only exposed her real lack of temperament occasionally. She's a complete nutjob for punishing military recruiters with banishment over the actual law of the land they had no control over.
We'll see for sure in a few years, as we realize Kagan is the most liberal jurist on the court. Sotomayor was stupid, but much more moderate and somewhat prosecutor friendly. Kagan is like Obama: a cipher who knows how to feign moderateness and knows they have a good reason to cover up their true views.
Oh well. Democracy put Obama in a place to do this. I accept that, but it's lame we missed this chance to replace probably 3 liberals and fix our Court. We will not get another chance to do that for 40 years. Now, we're playing defense to just maintain a few reasonable seats.
Why did we nominate Mccain? Hell, Mccain probably would have picked Dianne Wood.
It all goes back to the open primary and order of primaries. Our system isn't working because it's not supposed to work.
Of course I am much more disappointed that Siobhan Magnus was eliminated on American Idol.
We do have to keep our priorities straight.
Two shaina maideleh and seven mackerel snappers.
Where are the Methodists!!??!!
I saw somewhere her paper trail & scholarly scribblings are almost as scant as President Obama's.
Intrade agrees on Kagan- http://www.intrade.com/
Well, good for her if she's O's pick. The last Harvard prof whom a Dem president put on the SCOTUS (Felix F) turned out to be something of a disappointment to the Dems. Maybe Justice Elena has a few surprises in store for them as well.
In her prior roles (prof and dean at HLS and now SG) she's never had a free hand, and was circumsribed in what she could say or do by the demands of those institutions and their inhabitants. The point of life tenure is to free the judge from those kinds of constraints.
I doubt that she is a dissenter from the PC-ish pieties about race/class/gender that define academic culture today -- it seems impossible to rise in that world if you are. Her over-the-top blast against military recruiters at HLS who had the temerity to show up, after it became clear that they could not be barred but were still not wanted, strikes me as sincere and a pretty good indicator of how she views the world. But I'd be less surprised if she concludes that those pieties are not enshrined in the Constitution in a way that judges can use them to overturn legislation or impose their own values on a recalcitrant nation.
If only they were shaina maidelahs. But as it stands they affront the eyes as well as the brain.
also, don't be surprised if a lot of liberals and mobies make a huge deal out of the lack of protestants without actually making a good argument.
There is an obvious and smart argument to be made that this view should be represented on the court, but instead, the trolls with make strange comments about Jews.
That's just a trick meant to substitute a great argument with a terrible one. The fact is this Court simply does not represent our people. It's packed with an extremely narrow group of people mostly from a tiny slice of this country that thinks of itself as elite. But it's fodder for trolls to make comments about Jews, because both sides want the other to look anti Semitic.
"She's a complete nutjob for punishing military recruiters with banishment over the actual law of the land they had no control over"
I think the administration and pundits underestimate how profoundly offensive her actions on this issue are to the general public.
Holy doppleganger Batman!
I never knew that Blossom became a lawyer!
J,
Indeed this shows a profound problem. Lawyers, especially judges, should understand the concept 'I am following rules and laws I may not agree with because that's how our legal system functions.'
If conservatives started sending abortionists to death row for murder, that would be incoherent with our laws. If conservatives started refused to prosecute tax evaders because progressive taxation is an EPC violation (I'm not arguing that it is), that would be incoherent with our laws.
Kagan knows these are public servants complying with a legal system that is sometimes imperfect. The right way to deal with military regs you don't like is hardly to start punishing people who are trying to recruit for the military. Most of Harvard's best happened to also spend time in the military, so they are betraying their own institution's proudest tradition.
Kagan and many like her were incredibly extreme to punish the recruitment process of our military and our servicemen who graced her campus. We *need* to recruit high quality people into the military, even though many aspects of the military are unfair. We needed to fight WWII despite segregation and sexism in the ranks.
This is one of the most obvious times where the rule of law should be honored over your personal views, and if you want to change the law, you lobby and advocate and speak and vote accordingly instead of rejecting the rule of law. These recruiters were honoring the law, and Kagan was rejecting the rule of law.
Kagan is a terrible pick for the court because she is extremely radical and has been transparent only in how zealously she guards her views, much like Obama himself. Very little writing and very little advocacy for such a highly successful legal academic, but what we see is nutjob level liberalism, and her private meetings with Obama must have told him quite a bit.
But Kagan is not the real problem. The real problem is that the democratic processes were so screwed up. Until we fix that, what alternative to Obama will we present?
Is she the lesbian we're not supposed to say is a lesbian?
So, we're going to have sitting in the USSC along with 8 other potentates a woman who blocked US military JAG recruiters from coming on the grounds of Harvard Law School to recruit lawyers.
Look, I know we have to "get over it", but this just boggles the mind ... that someone with this on her record would even have a shot at the court.
Sad.
Did you know there's no Yiddish word for Lesbian?
If she was not originally a lesbian I bet she's the kind of woman who becomes a lesbian. Like Meredith Baxter Birney or Carol Leifer.
I guess another way to put it: that kook who won't obey orders until he sees Obama's birth certificate is showing a level of reasoning on par with Kagan's.
We need a functional military even if you suppose some aspect of the process wasn't fair. You have to be OK with anarchy or a deranged asshole partisan to act like Kagan.
Trying to force ancillary political objectives, such as seeing the version of the birth certificate people want (I am not familiar and don't care about this enough to know what the name is), or getting gays in our military, by refusing to permit military orders and recruitment and function, is simply insane.
It's the lowest form of blackmail. We will never function until we accept some level of 'follow the laws now as you try to change them'. Kagan fails the most minimal test. She was clever to hide her politics except where she's so deranged she can't resist, but she still fails because she doesn't respect the most basic concept of administration of rules.
If the constitution's rules don't go the way Kagan would like, she will simply refuse to honor those rules. She sees herself as a judge of which rules are worthy, not a judge of how well the rules apply to a situation, her personal views put aside.
Scratch the surface of a Kagan supporter, and you will find a Clarence Thomas (of Yale, LOL) hater. It's amusing to think about how these people are complete opposites in obvious and subtle ways.
I know, I know, I am way too interested in this. Believe it or not, I strongly oppose DADT and think gays should obviously be permitted to serve. But I'm so sick and tired of the game of lying and hiding your views.
Obama LOVES that freaking game. And he calls himself democrat.
Lyssa, that's insightful.
And Kagan has been very unpersuasive to the Court as Solicitor.
But actual experience seems to be a value that Obama carefully avoids thinking about. Somehow, just being deemed special and smart is enough to ignore the complete lack of experience judging. Most of what the Court does is judging the judging of judges, so it's insulting to put someone up there over all those judges who have decades of experience.
Of course, you can't be an experienced judge and also be so young.
What is the fat/thin ratio on the court these days? I think we've got too many fatties.
And President Obama considers her to be a persuasive, fearless advocate who would serve as an intellectual counterweight to Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia,
With such a thin academic publishing record, I guess that she is an "intellectual heavyweight" in the same sense that Obama is. Who knew that not publishing while on a law school faculty was the Royal Road to success?
Compare Kagan's view with Summers in 2002. From the Crimson:
Three Harvard seniors were sworn in as second lieutenants during their Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) commissioning ceremony yesterday morning as University President Lawrence H. Summers looked on.å
“There are no students graduating this year of whom I am more proud than these three fine young men,” Summers said of former Army cadet Charles B. Cromwell ’02 and former Air Force cadets Sean D. McGrath ’02 and Brian R. Smith ’02.
Summers was the first Harvard President to attend an ROTC Commissioning since 1969.
Hahvad, btw does not recognize ROTC. Its students get no credits and attend ROTC classes at MIT.
This pick will be just like all of Obama's other picks. A dyed-in-the-wool Leftist activist, with all of the contempt for freedom that that entails. Obama doesn't really care who gets which job, so long as they are all committed to the same ultimate goal.
That's how Dr. Fists-a-lot got put in charge of school safety, Anita "Love me some Mao" Dunn became Communications Director, that La Raza member got sent up to the Court last time, etc.
We all knew what he'd do if he won, and now we just have to sit back and watch. I do hope that there are some confirmation hiccups, though. Anything to gum up the works and slow down the Administration will be a huge boon for the country. We only have to stall/hang on for 6 more months and these people will be totally de-fanged.
she's a great choice. she wasn't able to convince kennedy as solicitor general, and she will continue to lack influence as a justice.
It's true, go to Oyez and listen to this nutjob try to argue a case. I think she'll have trouble bringing Kennedy into the fold at all.
I think she's very liberal and Obama knows she did a good job hiding it. He gets some points with gays, even though she's not gay, because a lot of the reaction to her will triangulate a certain way.
But she will not be the left's Roberts.
Has she been paying her taxes?
She's the one that Paul Campos calls the Stealth Law Professor.
As the rumblings become louder that President Obama is going to choose U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan as our next Supreme Court justice, somebody needs to ask a rather impolitic question: How, precisely, is Kagan's prospective nomination different from George W. Bush's ill-fated attempt to put Harriet Miers on the nation's highest court?
On its face, the question seems absurd. Five years ago, Miers was derided as a careerist mediocrity whose primary qualification to be on the Supreme Court was a slavish devotion to President Bush. Kagan, by contrast is a purportedly "brilliant" legal scholar who was granted tenure at the University of Chicago and Harvard, before becoming dean of the latter's law school.
Yesterday, 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. Somehow, Kagan got tenure at Chicago in 1995 on the basis of a single article in The Supreme Court Review—a scholarly journal edited by Chicago's own faculty—and a short essay in the school's law review. She then worked in the Clinton administration for several years before joining Harvard as a visiting professor of law in 1999. While there she published two articles, but since receiving tenure from Harvard in 2001 (and becoming dean of the law school in 2003) she has published nothing. (While it's true law school deans often do little scholarly writing during their terms, Kagan is remarkable both for how little she did in the dozen years prior to becoming Harvard's dean, and for never having written anything intended for a more general audience, either before or after taking that position.)
Once again, we're going to be told how brillant someone is with virtually no proof being offered.
Larry J said...Once again, we're going to be told how brillant someone is with virtually no proof being offered.
I had assumed she was a legal scholar because as I understand it, she has little experience in a court room and previous to her SG job, no appellate work.
Larry J
If we were going to fill important jobs with accomplished people, well, then John McCain would be president.
First we had Laverne & Shirley, then Cagney & Lacey and now its going to be Kagan & Sotomayor :(
yikes..
I'm woman hear me roar
Whatever happened to Linda Carter roping the bad guys?
Once again, we're going to be told how brillant someone is with virtually no proof being offered.
She's a Democrat, ergo, she's brilliant.
Lem said...
First we had Laverne & Shirley...
For once the Red Sox fan got it exactly right. Forget Blossom.....there is only one person she can be!
And you know he said he wasn't a lesbian either.
Not that theres anything wrong with that.
She's a complete nutjob for punishing military recruiters with banishment
She wasn't punishing the military, she punished her own students! Any interested in a military career (and having their tuition re-imbursed) would have to arrange an off-campus meeting. I wonder if any student had the balls to complain to her.
Isn't she the one who hates the rotc?
I'm not thrilled with the pick. I doubt I could be thrilled by anyone Obama would pick. It could be worse. (May still be.)
But you would think she's the Manchurian Lesbocommie Freak from Hell from some of the commentary.
Her sexuality is a private matter. It's quite old school of her to keep it so. I bet Thomas, Scalia and Roberts agree with that, and will get along with her fine. Alito too.
Kennedy of course she will lead around by a wire attached to his scrotum. (Dream on, Obama.)
Her views on the public safety exception for Miranda might be interesting.
My guess is that this question - Mirandizing terrorists - will be visited again.
And again.
And again.
Until they succeed.
David, did you read this thread before commenting on it?
I don't think you did, but if you did, you're a liar.
As usual, the left will try to make this about how bigoted people are for not supporting her. She has absolutely no record aside from a very ugly act of extreme intemperance.
She's a loser. Not a judge, not a lawyer, an academic who never wrote anything. A loser. She's indeed a cypher and that has nothing to do with her sexuality.
It's about time the hog-nosed got representation on the court.
Jimmy Durante is smiling somewhere.
FREE SNOUTS!
Supremely unqualified.
Looks like we are getting closer to identifying the most-liberal-person-Obama-could-nominate.
I told you people would have to wait for the pick to make the claim.
Kudos to Trooper for identifying someone who is not on the short list.
Flexo, do you think Kagan is more or less qualified than Harriet Miers?
Once again, we're going to be told how brillant someone is with virtually no proof being offered.
Yes, because no brilliance is needed to be a Dean.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/d/df/20090107202705!Elena_Kagan_2.jpg
This sweathog needs to push away from the buffet.
Don't we have enough obese federal officials we're paying health care costs for?
At some point, hasn't Ms. Kagan had enough to eat?
OMG!!! She looks like Quagmire. Giggity-gittity-goo!!! All-right!!!
Reading the tea leaves from the previous post, Elena Keagan is supposed to have a good pair of boots to keep on the throats of corporations.
So lets see,
A health care mandate raising the health care premiums corporations already pay -check
Deficit spending like a magical perpetual Greek gyro, weakening the value of the dollar corporations use to stay in business -check
Now, a lifetime, made flesh Iron Maiden to make sure corporations will never be able to shed the Obama anti business shackles.
Thank you president Obama.
oh yea.. these corporations are supposed to hire people so as to reduce Obamas unemployment rate.
Flexo, do you think Kagan is more or less qualified than Harriet Miers?
I'll go with less.
"..do you think Kagan is more or less qualified than Harriet Miers?"
She's more or less as qualified as Harriet Miers.
There's no difference between them.
Do you really want to go down this road?
Pter Hoh:
Oh. she's probably far more qualified than harriet miers.
Still, she hates the rotc.
Bush was never serious about Harriet Miers..
Harriet Miers was a brilliant head fake.
I think that barring military recruiters from job fairs at HLC was wrong. I don't see the issue playing well in the confirmation hearings.
I suspect that this is a trial balloon, meant to attract all sorts of flak on the Sunday shows.
If I recall correctly, none of the pundits had picked Sotomayor as being on the short list during the last selection process. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if the actual pick is someone other than Woods or Kagan.
The wise thing to do is to believe reporters once the President has made the announcement.
Then, there's Ann's approach.
Lem, you had me at "Bush was never serious."
An ultra-leftist with Obama's tanking approval rating, not gonna happen. This dog don't hunt.
So Bush wasn't serious about Harriet Meiers? You're saying he was playing childish games with one of the most serious powers of the Presidency?
Wow. He was a worse President than we think, if possible.
she once made junior associate at a law firm and has over 15 months of losing courtroom experience. can't be having a fatter resume than the president.
"An ultra-leftist with Obama's tanking approval rating, not gonna happen."
Back on Earth, Obama's approval ratings are increasing since early April.
And, he is a centrist. Do you think an ultra-leftist would have Paul Volcker as a financial adviser?
the stuff you guys come up with.
I'd also be fascinated to hear a defense of this statement from Sara Palin yesterday on Fox:
"I think we should kind of keep this clean, keep it simple, go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant. They're quite clear that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the 10 Commandments. It's pretty simple."
This is the shining light of the conservative movement arguing that the USA is really a Christian theocracy.
By all means, someone, (Ann Althouse, perhaps), elaborate!
Here's you link to that Palin brilliance:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,592422,00.html
mesquito said...
"Still, she hates the rotc."
Did you ever, once, stop to figure out the issues with ROTC at Harvard or dozens of other schools? did you?
nope.
You're saying he was playing childish games with one of the most serious powers of the Presidency?
No.. What I'm saying is that Bush 43 was not going to make the same mistakes his father did.
Leaving Saddam in power and putting David Souter in the Court.
..41 also went back on his read my lips pledge.
wv - teeth; the power of the presidency.
HDHouse said...
Did you ever, once, stop to figure out the issues with ROTC at Harvard or dozens of other schools? did you?
Yes, I have.
"Yes, because no brilliance is needed to be a Dean."
??? You think it takes brilliance to be a dean? How so? What weighty issues would a dean encounter that requires brilliance? As opposed to a governor, for example?
"Did you ever, once, stop to figure out the issues with ROTC at Harvard or dozens of other schools? did you?"
what issues do YOU think Harvard or dozens of other schools have with ROTC? Is the issue even with ROTC? Or is it with the military? And do these schools put their pocketbook where their mouth is and refuse gov money until their issues with the military is resolved?
To add insult to injury that little pip-squeak Souter retired under a democrat presidency.
muttering... ungrateful twerp.
wv - abioniti; a supreme court associate justice from New Hampshire.
Who the hell cares that Palin pointed out some Christian statement?
Is that just some attempt to distract from the glaring inadequacy of Elena Kagan? She's far less qualified than, say Harriet Crony Myers.
Yeah, a lot of Christians read the declarations and think our system is based on some religion. They know the Ten Commandments are one of those ancient legal concepts.
Palin isn't exactly alone there, but what's that got to do with the price of tea in China? Palin made her point poorly. She's got a problem with that, but so what?
I miss the days when no one gave a frig about who they picked for SCOTUS. Now the media spends almost all of its time reporting the parties' chess moves instead of how the frigging elected pols could actually fix one frigging thing!
Is it Happy Hour yet?
"And President Obama considers her to be a persuasive, fearless advocate who would serve as an intellectual counterweight to Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia"
Whenever I read remarks like this I have to smile and wonder to myself how the left wing of the S. Ct. must feel hearing such things spoken as common wisdom.
I figure that it's gotta be especially grating on Sotomayor.
Slow Joe,
It all goes back to the open primary and order of primaries. Our system isn't working because it's not supposed to work.
You shouldn't call yourself "slow" -- you've nailed it.
The system isn't working for ordinary Americans because it's not supposed to work for ordinary Americans.
It works for The Annointed because that's how they set it up. This is not a Republican or Democrat thing, but an Annointed vs. The Rest Of Us thing.
Alpha:
A theocracy is just the other end of the pendulum from what we have now- which is a family hating, religion hating, tradition hating, America hating bunch of far left libs.
This current clueless "reign of error" seems to be failing quite miserably so why not give the theocrats like Palin a turn at the plate? How much worse could it get?
"Who the hell cares that Palin pointed out some Christian statement?"
It is NOT Christian. "Christianist," maybe, in terms of a very politicized Christianity.
Sarah Palin is one of the top Republicans in the country and adored by the base of the party.
Yet, she demonstrates complete ignorance about the founding precepts of the country.
Therefore, it is interesting. After all, fox News broadcast it and pays her a handsome salary (Along with 2 other likely Republican Presidential nominees).
the same Fox News with a large stake owned by the Saudi royal family.
the same Fox News with a large stake owned by the Saudi royal family.>
We Liberals call that xenophobia.
I get it, Alphaliberal, you realize this issue is another that shows what the Obama administration is all about, and you want to find something, anything to change the topic.
Obama mentions and justifies his views on the basis of religion more than Palin ever dreamed of doing.
If Alphaliberal is truly pissed off about religion, I guess he would vote for Palin over Obama like any sane person.
Palin, for all her faults and lighter than ideal resume, is more accomplished, smarter, funnier, and frankly, quite a bit more ethical than Rezko Big Oil Chicago Wall Street Obama. But AL would be more interested in the fact that Obama attended a damn near cult of kookiness and frequently preaches how his religious views justify his policies.
It's only conservatives who are not allowed to use their religious values in coming to conclusions about right and wrong... why, that's a theocracy!
Fact is, Palin is just being honest about where she's coming from. She thinks Christianity is right and that colors her view of the world. Obama would never be so frank. Even when he preaches it's hard to trust him. As he will boast, he's a blank slate that he wants you to match to your views.
Bashing Palin as 'top Republican theocrat' is ridiculous. Why don't you look at Palin's strong record on judicial nominations? She frequently picked experienced moderates with a record the people could look at. She did a much better job than Obama is doing. I can't believe we put Obama a heartbeat away from the presidency (since the decisions are really made by Rahm and David as Obama plays games outside).
"Sarah Palin is one of the top Republicans in the country and adored by the base of the party.
Yet, she demonstrates complete ignorance about the founding precepts of the country. "
Then I would suggest that someday, should she run for national office, that you not vote for her. Now then, what is the connection to the supreme court vacancy? You're losing me here.
Thanks, Jeff. I hope I have an opportunity to take you up o your advice.
The connection:
1) Supreme Court deals with Constitution.
2) Sarah Palin, a top national Republican and TP leader, shows dismal ignorance about the contents of the Constitution.
3) If their leader doesn't know jack and is so wildly wrong about the founding precepts of the country, why should her followers be taken seriously on matters related to the Supreme Court?
In other news, the foot bone is connected to the ankle bone. And the ankle bone is connected to the shin bone.
Thanks,
MadisonMan said...
Once again, we're going to be told how brillant someone is with virtually no proof being offered.
Yes, because no brilliance is needed to be a Dean.
A dean is an administrator. She may be a successful administrator. Does that mean she's brilliant? What are her actual legal qualifications except the seemingly mandatory Ivy League connection? Does she have significant experience in court, either as a trial attorney or a judge? Based on her meager published body of work, it doesn't appear she has contributed very much to legal scholarship either. So, just what are her qualifications to a lifetime appointment to the highest court in America? What exactly is evidence of her (or Obama's) alleged brilliance?
"Sarah Palin, a top national Republican and TP leader, shows dismal ignorance about the contents of the Constitution. "
why do you say that? I think you say that because you realize you just lost the argument, and know Palin was referring to the Declaration of Independence.
You don't even know the difference between that and the Constitution, and you're condemning Palin? What a joke, Palin nominated a lot of great judges, btw. You called Palin a theocrat christianist, in comparison I guess to violent Islamofascists.
I guess anything you can do to change the topic.
But if you didn't know that All Men Were Created Equal is part of the justification for our nation, then I'm going to guess you went to public school. Saying someone's views on law must be comments about the actual words in the constitution is ridiculous either way.
Palin's comments are accurate. These people were indeed pointedly using Christianity to justify the system they created. I wonder just how serious you are, though.
I'm an ROTC graduate. I attended school on an ROTC scholarship. I was commissioned an infantry lieutenant in the reserve component of the United States Army in 1992. I have worn the uniform ever since. I have fulfilled my service commitment twice over and then some, and plan to keep doing it.
Opponents of the ROTC, and those who seek to limit the activities of military recruiters because the military must obey laws set forth by Congress is a fucking idiot, and they hurt no one but students at their schools and their country.
I could not have gone to school without an ROTC scholarship. Any libtard dingbat who tries to force either ROTC programs or military recruiters off campus - IN TIME OF WAR - doesn't deserve to be on anyone's 'short list' for anything except a shit list.
WV: Lympl. Simple and limp. A libtard's intellect.
Jason,
Thank you for your service.
This conservative was actually inclined towards Kagan, giving her the benefit of the doubt because she's the President's Choice and deferral to the President should be a major if not deciding factor in Supreme Court approval.
However, when I found out that she pulled military presence from Harvard - as you so well described it, a military which "Must obey the laws of Congress" - and has not repented of her anti-American actions, I decided that her poor judgment in this arena alone disqualifies her from being a life-time appointed Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
Yes, because no brilliance is needed to be a Dean.
those who can...
those who can't...
and those who can't even teach...
This article from the NY Times goes a little more in depth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/us/politics/07kagan.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
They try to make her look like a moderate on this issue. Whatever.
I don't trust the reporting, since I don't know what stupid ideas are Kagan's and which ones are the idiot reporter's. The reporter, Katheryne Seelye, doesn't seem to grasp that the prohibition against homsexuals openly serving in the military is NOT "military policy," but the black-letter law of the land, set forth by Congress, and signed by the President.
Only Congress can repeal it.
So I don't know how much of the stupidity is Seelye's and how much is Kagan's.
Kagan DID, however, weigh in against the military in FAIR v. Rumsfeld. Her position was flatly rejected by the USSC in a unanimous vote. 8-0.
If she's to libtardy to figure out when she's on the side of an argument that loses 8-0, she doesn't belong on the Supreme Court.
Do any of the Supreme Court members smoke, as does the POTUS?
It would increase turn-over.
Well, Alpha Lib has convinced me. President Obama should certainly not nominate Sarah Palin to be a Supreme Court justice. Really, what is he thinking?!
- Lyssa
Trooper York said...
Of course I am much more disappointed that Siobhan Magnus was eliminated on American Idol.
We do have to keep our priorities straight...
THe undermining the producers & judges did of the whacky but enormously gifted and entertaining, unpredictable Siobhan helped suck the life out of that show. Ratings are way down, and they deserve it. It doesn't help their case that once free of the Idol Dome's snakepit negativity, Magnus on show after show on her "Idol outcast" media tour - was on fire. Standing Os and media begging for more bookings. A new song introduced on BET she just killed on with a jazz style and improvised notes to the music of. "Summertime". And word of just how impressive her last Idol songs were in studio recordings came out last week. So many people are beginning to talk about "the maybe soon-to-be star Idol had, screwed up, and lost".
======================
Kagan will a fun thing to see the Senate confirmation hearings on. No doubt the backroom deals have already been made with some corrupted Republican Senators to signal she is somehow "not what they wanted, but acceptable".
Anti-military, yet another Ivy league elite, PC as anything. Young enough to fester her liberal ideology for 30 years on the Court.
Possible mistake because Obama elitists may have convinced themselves that the American people love Harvard academics, that they are in love with all things homosexual and will stand on the buildings cheering. About just how special and uplifting and even more desirable a lesbian is on the court - than a evil straight woman who has spawned and degraded ecosystem of Mother Gaia even more. And that what America wants more than anything for balance on the Court is a 3rd progressive Jewish Leftist (two from Manhattan, one from San Francisco) having a seat.
The good news is that she occasionally has departed from the doctrinaire Left. Some of her opinions are centrist. She even disagrees with the Left on certain terrorist "rights" they advocate. Kagan is very smart and outside of the question if she would be good or bad for the country, has the credentials. (other than never actually practicing as a regular lawyer).
Jason - I also was ROTC. And some of the schools I was interested in, in the mid-80s were walled off to me because they had ROTC bans. (left in place by Leftist universities long after VIetnam, but before "love of all gay rights" became the anti-military excuse of preference)
I take it personally, like you.
In part, I wanted to serve because my family has always had somebody in, going back to the 1890s. "I want the aid, but I want to also serve my country!" Response: "We don't want your kind here..."
Slow Joe said...
"She's a loser."
She's Solicitor General of the United States. You are a person posting on the internet with a hidden profile.
How did Sarah Palin find her way into this post? That lady has control of the liberal mind. Bizarre!
Slow Joe said:
I know, I know, I am way too interested in this. Believe it or not, I strongly oppose DADT and think gays should obviously be permitted to serve.
I see this all the time and it never makes sense to me. It is (not was. Is) illegal for a gay or lesbian to serve in the US military. That is the law and has been since 92 or so. The law REQUIRES that homosexual be discharged.
DADT says that the military will turn a blind eye to the law. The law is still there, but as long as they are discreet about their activities, gays and lesbians will not be searched out.
So you want to eliminate DADT because you think gays should be able to serve?
Why? It is DADT that permits them to serve.
You, and all the others who keep yammering about "We must eliminate DADT" seem confused.
Perhaps the underlying law should be changed. But that is another argument that I almost never see mentioned.
All eliminating DADT will do is require the law to be enforced. All eliminating DADT will do is kick all homosexuals out of the military.
John Henry
Ann Althouse said...
How did Sarah Palin find her way into this post? That lady has control of the liberal mind. Bizarre!"
You know better than that Ann. Sarah is the proverbial bozo with the lampshade at the office party - an intellectual trainwreck you can't help but looking at.
The ever increasing psycho-right menace on your blog trots here out when they have nothing to say. When stumped and stuttering the just explode "Sarah Palin" as some sort of answer to a question never asked.
I do agree that she is one of the best things liberals can think about and I actually want to see her take more of a leadership role - she being the gift that keeps on giving to us liberals...but "control of the liberal mind"? so doubtful.
very very doubtful.
" David said...
Slow Joe said...
"She's a loser."
She's Solicitor General of the United States. You are a person posting on the internet with a hidden profile.
5/7/10 8:32 PM"
Good point, I admit, but I'm a pretty happy person who has actually published more than Kagan. I'm no mastermind, and I'm no millionaire, and I admit, I hardly have an in with this pack of people who all come from Chicago and all seem to be elevated without any measure of success beyond beyond promoted by eachother.
I know this is easy to say, 'those grapes were sour anyway', but I don't really want to be part of that pack.
As an academic, which is most of what this woman was, she is indeed a loser. She has failed to expand the corpus of human knowledge, even in the way legal academics try to with arguments about policies. As SG, she's been an abject failure, I might add. He major cases have probably not gone the way she really wanted them to.
But I'm just an anonymous commenter, and not even much of a commenter at that. I guess I should amend my remark. For a Supreme Court pick, Kagan is a loser. I think she is Miers level.
John Henry, I served in the Field Artillery when I was younger, and I knew a gay soldier. We all knew it. The DADT policy didn't really cause a problem, I admit. But it just is one of those policies that isn't necessary and makes too much of a mess sometimes (as can be seen with discharges one reads about occasionally). It really wasn't going to cause much of a problem if he were 'out'. And in units that it would cause a problem, the situation is even worse when a patriot has to hide the reality of who they are.
It's just an opinion. I get your side of the argument. Fraternization is rampant in the military (I was in the Army, and though I was in an all male unit, any time we worked closely with women fraternization was simply rampant). It didn't seem to really be the problem one might imagine it would be, which to my mind eliminates a lot of the problems associated with gays serving. The other being harassment issues, which I frankly don't think are realistic.
I should add, part of my view is colored by a mistake I made trying to interfere with fraternization. I thought it was some kind of major problem, and wound up causing a lot of problems for a subordinate that was an excellent soldier beyond this extreme lapse of discipline.
I honestly think I should have turned a blind eye, but I was a 21 year old NCO, and I was very sterotypically buck about it.
As I recall, before 1993 and DADT, the ban on homosexuality was a military regulation which could have been changed by executive order (by a stroke of Bill Clinton's ...pen). Since then, it will take an act of Congress to change the regs.
I think it's better for all parties if discretion is enforced officially (and loosely) rather than unofficially. The brass is mostly just scandal-averse.
Ok, Slow Joe, that's better. At least some reasons why you think she's a loser. Sure looks like she's been playing a winning hand to me, though.
Uninspired choice. Oh that the following had happened: http://gerrydarrow.blogspot.com/2010/04/obama-picks-unknown-for-supreme-court.html
AlphaLiberal said...
It is NOT Christian. "Christianist," maybe, in terms of a very politicized Christianity.
Oh hey AL. I see you are making up lies again and clearly following on the knee-padded footsteps of your favorite boy-toy Andrew Sullivan.
What does ROTC have to do with Harvard Law School? It's an undergraduate program.
No it's not, ignoramus. It's ROTC. And you can be in it as a graduate student as well.
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