Nice Lady Nominated for Supreme Court

We won’t recap Glenn Greenwald’s argument against Elena Kagan here, but his most notable assertion is that nobody knows who she is. Sure, we know her resume, and she’s best buds with a lot of folks, but she’s something of a Chauncey Gardiner when it comes to divining her positions on legal issues. (We prefer that to the Harriet Miers comparison — Kagan’s actually competent at what she does, by all accounts.)

But if you don’t want to hear it from Greenwald, here’s Jeffrey Toobin making the same point from a much friendlier perspective:

I met Elena on our first day of law school at Harvard in the fall of 1983…

Elena danced at our wedding in 1986. When my wife, Amy, and I bought our first apartment, Elena’s father was our lawyer; he had a small real estate law firm in New York. (He died in 1994.) When Elena’s mother died last year, I sat shiva with the family in the apartment where she grew up on the West Side…

All of this may be interesting, but it’s largely beside the point for a Supreme Court Justice. The justices are not really managers of people, certainly not in comparison to the dean of a major law school. Judgment, values, and politics are what matters on the Court. And here I am somewhat at a loss. Clearly, she’s a Democrat. She was a highly regarded member of the White House staff during the Clinton years, but her own views were and are something of a mystery. She has written relatively little, and nothing of great consequence.

We won’t go as far as Greenwald and call Kagan’s supporters mindless camp followers. We’ll just wait for some basis to form a judgment. From what we’ve read so far, none is on offer.

Elena Kagan’s Nomination [New Yorker, via Political Wire]
15 Comments

Apparently her lack of hiring anyone either African American or Latino in her years as a manager may bite her – while probably boosting her viability with Mitch and his posse in the Senate. Maybe Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah will vote for her now that the GOP convention has tossed him out.

So she’s best known for packing Hah-vahd Law School with two dozen Far-White nutcases, and then defending the policies of the Bush Administration that Obama is continuing??

And this is considered a ‘win’ for liberals??

The only reason I’ve found for supporting her nomination is that Daddy-O looked into her eyes saw her soul.

Beeyaches, puh-leeze. Let’s get Rosie O’D representin’ the crucial, wise-crackin’, loud-mouth, lezbian wing of the Court.

This is all about Harvard getting back at Yale, right?

The only thing in the middle of the road are yellow lines and dead armadillos…and gunners like her who avoid any sort of controversy from day 1 of law school.

@Original Andrew: Hey, don’t forget that in addition to hiring 23 white men at HLS, she decided that the school would provide free bagels and coffee to the law students in the mornings.

well
she apparently has a history with them:

In addition to attending the same law school as the president and previously clerking for one of his important Chicago supporters, Abner Mikva, she also previously worked as a special counsel to now-Vice President Joe Biden when Biden served on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

so I think its possible they feel they know her views. I just wish I was more confident in their opinion.

@SanFranLefty:

And piles of progressives who’ve been thrown under the bus. (Ker-thunk! Ker-thunk!)

The only thing in the middle of the road are yellow lines and dead armadillos

@Capt Howdy: so I think its possible they feel they know her views. I just wish I was more confident in their opinion.

Shorter Greenwald.

Again, without getting into the weeds about court balance and the justice she’s replacing, his point is that her (presumably informed) supporters are mounting a Trust Us campaign. They may have seen into her soul, but they’re not giving the rest of us much to work with.

@Capt Howdy: Meanwhile at TPM, Andrew Pincus makes the case:

So, why Kagan? I’d suggest four reasons.

First, she breaks the pattern of nominating sitting appellate judges, allowing the President to say that his selection will bring greater diversity of experience to the Court…

Second, age. At 50, Kagan is the youngest of the finalists…

Third, Kagan’s “people skills.”…

Fourth, Kagan went through the Senate confirmation process just last year.

And Fifth… ummm… Bagels!

@nojo:

the hearings will be more interesting than usual Im thinkin.

TJ/ Bob Barr is being sued by his ghostwriter for nonpayment, but his former campaign manager is on it: “If there are libertarians who want to make sure Jim gets paid, they can donate to us.” What was that about reduced spending and balanced budgets, Bob?

Gawd, I fucking hate people who talk (not just name-drop, storytell) about famous people they know. Those assholes who like being a part of the political circle jerk of asswipes that are all buddy buddy with each other behind the scenes while playing the part of enemies in public. Lying, starfucking shitfaces … all of them. I hope they all die slow and horrifically painful deaths.

/have a nice day

I wonder if Toobin asked Kagan to be the godmother to his mistress’s love child.

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