Kagan Changes Tune Now That She Is In The Seat
Jun 30, 2010 Political
Elena Kagan will be confirmed barring any major gaffe (a Joe Biden type gaffe) on her part. There is no way (short of a filibuster) to stop her confirmation even though she has little experience for the position which should not be an issue, she is after all, in the mold of Barry and he was the least qualified person to hold his current job.
Kagan will end up being a Justice on the Supreme Court and despite what she says, her politics and personal views and NOT the Constitution will guide her. Chuck Schumer describes her as a moderate which she is definitely not. She seems intelligent and articulate but moderate she is not.
She banned military recruiters at Harvard (and yet insists she didn’t) because she disagreed with “don’t ask, don’t tell.” I have no problem with that action as long as she then refused federal funding in accordance with the law. Kagan has been describing what she did but her version is different from reality. She opposed DADT but did not initially ban recruiters because of the funding issue. As soon as a lower court ruled the Solomon Amendment unconstitutional she banned them. This is because she would not lose the money. When the Supreme Court overturned that ruling she allowed recruiters once again. She is not as principled as she claims because she put getting taxpayer money ahead of her so called principled views.
A principled person would have banned them regardless of the money.
But having principles is not necessarily her strong point. Case in point, she avoided many questions by claiming that the issue might come before the court which is not unusual for a nominee to do. However, in her case she is doing that which she railed against in the past:
Kagan in 1995:
In a 1995 book review, Ms. Kagan wrote that recent Supreme Court confirmation hearings had taken on “an air of vacuity and farce” because nominees would not engage in a meaningful discussion of legal issues, declining to answer any question that might “have some bearing on a case that might some day come before the Court.” She called on senators and future nominees to engage in a much more open and detailed discussion of legal issues.Kagan today:
Under questioning by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, Ms. Kagan said she thought it would be inappropriate for her to talk about how she might rule on pending cases or cases “that might come before the court in the future” — or to answer questions that were “veiled” efforts to get at such issues. The New York Times
The common feeling is that nominees evade things during confirmation and claim they will follow the Constitution and then do what they want once on the bench. Of course Kagan and her supporters say she would not do such a thing but she has demonstrated that she will change her stance based on politics. She said that nominees should be more open but now the politics of the issue requires her to do the exact opposite.
Kagan also refused to comment on past rulings of the Court because she felt she would be grading the Court. How is this even an issue? She should comment on the so called settled cases and let the Senate know how she would have ruled or how she feels about a ruling. You can bet she would not mind commenting on past cases that are popular. If someone asked her how she felt about Brown v. Board of Education or the Dred Scott Decision you can bet she would tell how wonderful it is that we now have fully desegregated schools and and how the Fourteenth* Amendment overturned Scott and made freemen citizens and not property.
So why not opine on other decisions? If stare decisis is so sacrosanct, why not comment?
It is also alleged that Kagan was instrumental in altering a document in order to present a view to the Supreme Court that was not intended by the experts who wrote the document. This is dishonest and should have resulted in her disbarment. The document altered changed an opinion of OB doctors from anti partial birth abortion to pro partial birth abortion. This should tell us all we need to know about her.
There is no doubt Kagan is a progressive and will rule based on progressive ideals. We expected that when Obama nominated her. Her lack of experience is troubling and we could end up with the same kind of disaster we call Obama. The difference is, the longest we can possibly be stuck with him is eight years. She is young and her appointment will be for a lifetime which could be 30 or 40 years.
Well, at least that is plenty of time for on the job training.
At least Al Franken had a good time. I have to say it is a pretty good drawing.
*changed from Thirteenth
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: al franken, inexperience, kagan, Obama, recruiters, solomon amendment, supreme court