Many progressive writers have been predicting the probability of Obama's nomination of his solicitor general to the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy. Here is a collection of quotes from their articles, with links:Attorney Glenn Greenwald:
It's anything but surprising that President Obama has chosen Elena Kagan to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. Nothing is a better fit for this White House than a blank slate, institution-loyal, seemingly principle-free careerist who spent the last 15 months as the Obama administration's lawyer vigorously defending every one of his assertions of extremely broad executive authority. The Obama administration is filled to the brim with exactly such individuals -- as is reflected by its actions and policies -- and this is just one more to add to the pile. The fact that she'll be replacing someone like John Paul Stevens and likely sitting on the Supreme Court for the next three decades or so makes it much more consequential than most, but it is not a departure from the standard Obama approach.
Attorney bmaz (Marcy Wheeler's research associate):
I have previously explained the total lack of any experience – ever – of any kind – on Kagan’s part in the court system of the United States. Kagan has never set foot as an attorney of record into a trial courtroom in the United States, not even a small claims justice court; nor for that matter, any appellate court save for the literally handful of spoon fed cases she suddenly worked on as Solicitor General. Kagan has never been a judge in any courtroom, of any court, in the United States. Quite frankly, there is not even any evidence Elena Kagan has sat as a judge for a law school moot court exercise. I have had paralegals and secretaries with better experience than this. Does a nominee for the Supreme Court have to be Gerry Spence, Pat Fitzgerald or David Boies? No, but it would be nice if they had the passion, curiosity and commitment to their profession to go to court at least once. Never has there been a United States Supreme Court Justice with such a complete lack of involvement in the court system. Never.
Paul Campos, University of Colorado 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?
Guy-Uriel Charles, Anupoam Chander, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, & Angela Onwuachi-Willig (all minority law professors):
Like everyone in the legal academy over the last decade, we have watched with admiration the amazing changes that Elena Kagan brought to Harvard Law School. A fractured faculty, divided among ideological lines, seemed finally content, if not united. A boisterous student body was finally pacified. The logjam that had stopped faculty hiring had burst. Indeed, she hired so many new faculty the Harvard Law School’s newspaper’s 2008 April Fool’s issue declared, "Dean Kagan Hires Every Law Professor in the Country."
The first woman Dean of Harvard Law School had presided over an unprecedented expansion of the faculty -- growing it by almost a half. She had hired 32 tenured and tenure-track academic faculty members (non-clinical, non-practice). But when we sat down to review the actual record, we were frankly shocked. Not only were there shockingly few people of color, there were very few women. Where were the people of color? Where were the women? Of these 32 tenured and tenure-track academic hires, only one was a minority. Of these 32, only seven were women. All this in the 21st Century.
Digby:
Kagan is an unknown quantity, unlike Roberts and Alito who were clearly both conservative a highly political. Yet Bush managed to get them confirmed. I guess I just don't understand the double standard when it comes to Democrats and I refuse to capitulate to the common wisdom that says no Democratic president can ever confirm a known liberal.
Moreover, I think Supreme Court confirmation battles are ideologically instructive for the nation and are one of the few times when it's possible for people to speak at length about their philosophical worldview. Liberals have to stop running from this. Allowing the other side to define us is killing us.
There are a lot of people who have misgivings over Kagan and I think they're worth listening to. I don't know if she is conservative or not. Nobody does. But somebody who has reached her level and hasn't staked out a clear position is worrisome.
I'd really like to see Obama nominate one of the liberals and have real fight over it going into the election. I don't know why everyone assumes that we will always lose but it's certain that we will if we don't try.
Here's a debate on Monday morning's Democracy Now, between Glenn Greenwald and Kagan defender (and law professor) Jamin Raskin:
14 comments:
that democracy now segment is great. greenwald was really schooling raskin. and raskin stubbornly refused to say anything of substance in response.
The RNC and certain conservative bloggers have initiated the usual smear campaign against Kagan, so I guess the opinion about her nomination is unanimous: No one likes it.
She ought to do great.
and Phil dutifully picks up the smear campaign of the right and runs with it here.
Quoting Paul Campos with the Kagan analogous to Bush's Harriet Miers appointment ?
The right recently attempted to trot out that false meme to condemn Sotomayers appointment.
In either case, it's not supported by the record.
As i commented in the last post, it's more of the usual for Phil to be parroting right wing talking point nonsense, and echoing the false narratives created by the Republican noise machine.
Anyone interested in a little reality based view would do well to investigate further than Phil's usual tendency to repeat the opposition's tactics and narrative when it comes to Obama's policies and actions.
Distorting reality is the usual tactic of the right, one has to wonder why Phil continues to stoop to that level ?
Suppose he'd prefer McCain and Palin were appointing Supreme Court justices ?
If Phil works hard enough on his present track, maybe he can help Republicans gain the office of president in the next election.
All his efforts seem to point to that being his goal.
For a bit of an objective refutation of the right wing talking points offered up here on Phil's supposedly 'progressive' blog, take a gander at some reality based viewpoints:
http://mediamatters.org/research/201005100016
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So how wiill Kagan's confirmation hearing play out ?
When Republicans face off with Kagan ?
Here's Kagan on the confirmation process. Here are here words on what the confirmation process should confirm.
Nothing scary about what she says, unless you're a right wing conservative hoping to seat another right wing justice.
Here is Kagan, writing in the University of Chicago Law Review back in 1995:
""The Senate's consideration of a nominee, and particularly the Senate's confirmation hearings, ought to focus on substantive issues; the Senate ought to view the hearings as an opportunity to gain knowledge and promote public understanding of what the nominee believes the Court should do and how she would affect its conduct. Like other kinds of legislative fact-finding, this inquiry serves both to educate members of the Senate and public and to enhance their ability to make rea- soned choices. Open exploration of the nominee's substantive views, that is, enables senators and their constitutuents to engage in a focused discussion of constitutional values, to ascertain the values held by the nominee, and to evaluate whether the nominee possesses the values that the Supreme Court most urgently requires. These are the issues of greatest consequence surrounding any Supreme Court nomination (not the objective qualifications or personal morality of the nominee); and the process used in the Senate to serve the intertwined aims of education and evaluation ought to reflect what most greatly matters.
This open exploration by Senators includes:
"'.....the insistence on seeing how theory works in practice by evoking a nominee's comments on particular issues - involving privacy rights, free speech, race and gender discrimination, and so forth - that the Court regularly faces.""
The right is going to be trying to smear Kagan and build a false image of Kagan.
Phil can be counted on the carry that water for the right.
Don't fall for it.
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...because, y'know, digby, marcy wheeler, greenwald and those ivy league law professors are really all closeted right wingers...
and by linking them here, phil is furthering their nefarious agenda.
well, clark, what was it that Digby said, exactly ?
Did Digby support Phil's false memes ? Nope.
Marcy Wheeler hasn't been quoted.
Greenwald trotted out his one-sided objection a month ago and hasn't been able to provide documentation to support it.
..and those 'ivy league professors ? How about you recount their ideological bent for us, do you have any clue to their history ?
I'm betting you haven't a clue. Did you have some mistaken notion that 'ivy league' means something other than what it does mean ?
As if a couple of cherry picked links could encompass the complexity of the reality of Kagan's appointment anyway.
....get an education, clark, it'll help you gain the capability to learn what a larger perspective can do for you.
Get a brain, moron. When you haven't a clue what you're talking about, your blind adoration of all things Phil takes over when you should be looking at reality.
You and Phil can play out your circle jerk in two parts, hell, you might even find another compliant incurious drone to join you.
What you won't be able to do is offer any substantive evidence other than idle speculation and unfounded presumptions generated by the right.
You offer no evidence to support Phil's false narrative. Nothing to refute the record which puts the lie to the false narrative.
All you've got is your juvenile whimpering that someone challenged Phil's wholly distorted framing.
In the meantime, those who are capable of maintaining a reality based view will continue to dismiss the moronic idiocy of false memes, false narratives and/or giving credence to the blindly repeated talking points of the opposition.
You go ahead and suck up to that crap. It's directed at a level of intellect you've demonstrated here.
If you're so sure your idol, Phil, has it right, how about you provide something for the record that supports the unfounded speculation ?
Not more speculation and repetition of right wing talking points but actual records as substantive as those I've provided that show the lie to the false memes.
Be sure and let us know when you find someone to show you how to perform some basic research on your own. It'll be a banner day for you.
You'll have learned something that can actually serve your interests, better than the current slavish idolatry you so childishly practice.
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anon @ 9:41 a.m:
Sotamayor was probably the best SCOTUS nominee in 30 years. I've written about that here more than once.
I'm not ready to endorse Kagan, nor her replacement as solicitor general.
kagan looked like she was going to have a nervous breakdown when she said a few words after the president's announcement of her nomination.
this is obama's harriet miers. it's so obvious. i'll give her two weeks at the most... likely less.
How can anyone make a choice one way or the other. She looks to be a robot to me. Lets pop the hood and kick the tires first. Then we can do the IM test. But really dont we deserve quality at this point rather than just what will get by.
Notice Phil hasn't a response to his creation of false narratives. No response because there's nothing to back up his fake constructs.
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Kagan is quality, AKjah,
....you've just not been keeping up with the outside reading assignments.
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And 'clark', so you're a sop for the false memes of the right too ?
That figures.... Like I said, they're aimed at the intellectually impaired.
Found their mark. Scored a direct hit.
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"Notice Phil hasn't a response to his creation of false narratives. No response because there's nothing to back up his fake constructs."
I'm far too busy to respond to people who don't have the courtesy to at least create a nom de blog to which I might respond.
Something pathetic about whiners who aren't even imaginative enough to create a meaningful pseudonym for comments here.
wouldn't matter if I signed on with a 'google tag' or not, you don't answer to being challenged about your false narratives, you don't do it when asked by someone with a tag or without.
All you've got is yet another mealy-mouthed lame excuse, one you've trotted out several times in the past when faced with your own paradoxes and contradictions, put in play solely in order to duck any relevant challenge to your self-conceived unfounded framings.
With or without 'registering' an alias, the questions aren't any different.
The refusal to answer isn't any different either.
As were the several cases before, you've got nothing to back up or support your false narrative, and in so many cases where people can't support their fantasies and illusions, you think you can bluster your way through with oafish bombast.
Zip, nada, ....nothing beyond more self-absorbed pettifoggery.
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wouldn't matter if I signed on with a 'google tag' or not, you don't answer to being challenged about your false narratives, you don't do it when asked by someone with a tag or without.
All you've got is yet another mealy-mouthed lame excuse, one you've trotted out several times in the past when faced with your own paradoxes and contradictions, put in play solely in order to duck any relevant challenge to your self-conceived unfounded framings.
With or without 'registering' an alias, the questions aren't any different.
The refusal to answer isn't any different either.
As were the several cases before, you've got nothing to back up or support your false narrative, and in so many cases where people can't support their fantasies and illusions, you think you can bluster your way through with oafish bombast.
Zip, nada, ....nothing beyond more self-absorbed pettifoggery.
..
Anonymous said...
"wouldn't matter if I signed on with a 'google tag' or not, you don't answer to being challenged about your false narratives, you don't do it when asked by someone with a tag or without."
Amen to that remark!
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