Free Elena Kagan!
Elena Kagan's first "interview" as a Supreme Court nominee quickly hit some turbulence.
Kagan sat down with Arun Chaudhary, an Obama administration staffer, for a White House video presenting Kagan "in her own words." Like a campaign bio ad with a dash of 60 Minutes, the three-minute film shows Kagan's rise, as she sits, flanked by an American flag, ticking through her work as a law clerk, dean and government attorney.
Yet the video, like Kagan, says virtually nothing about her legal views. And the video, like the White House, aims to divert rather than answer public questions about this important nominee.
Supreme Court nominees do not usually do media interviews before their confirmation hearings, however, so it's not like the White House has breached decorum or Washington expectations. There is a much larger dynamic in play.
{President} Obama has tapped a thoroughly qualified individual with a very thin paper trail. This is an individual who used to argue that Supreme Court nominees should "reveal" themselves and disclose their "views on important legal issues" in confirmation hearings. Kagan even blasted the modern, evasive confirmation process as an "embarrassment" -- a "vapid and hollow charade."
But now, White House officials say Kagan has dropped those ideas altogether...
"Does anyone, anywhere, believe that her 'reversal' is motivated by anything other than a desire to avoid adhering to the standards she tried to impose on others?," asks attorney Glenn Greenwald, a vocal Kagan critic. It's a good question, since applying standards fairly and uniformly is a key quality that many people look for in judges.
The broader issue is whether the U.S. Senate will find a way to dispense with a review of judicial nominees that purports to ignore ideology and judicial values - a process that everyone who is not up for confirmation rightly sees as, yes, a charade. Even senators admit it...
Many people would prefer an honest airing of the views, ideology and legal principles of the people headed for the most powerful lifetime job in America. President Obama may have uncorked more than he bargained for, in nominating a qualified, talented but largely unknown attorney -- who happens to have a clear record supporting ideological candor for nominees -- in order to fill the large, liberal shoes of Justice John Paul Stevens.
Let's learn more about her. She's not Sarah Palin and she's not an umpire. Here's hoping the White House will free Elena Kagan. Or that she frees herself.
-- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ari-melber/f...
Kagan sat down with Arun Chaudhary, an Obama administration staffer, for a White House video presenting Kagan "in her own words." Like a campaign bio ad with a dash of 60 Minutes, the three-minute film shows Kagan's rise, as she sits, flanked by an American flag, ticking through her work as a law clerk, dean and government attorney.
Yet the video, like Kagan, says virtually nothing about her legal views. And the video, like the White House, aims to divert rather than answer public questions about this important nominee.
Supreme Court nominees do not usually do media interviews before their confirmation hearings, however, so it's not like the White House has breached decorum or Washington expectations. There is a much larger dynamic in play.
{President} Obama has tapped a thoroughly qualified individual with a very thin paper trail. This is an individual who used to argue that Supreme Court nominees should "reveal" themselves and disclose their "views on important legal issues" in confirmation hearings. Kagan even blasted the modern, evasive confirmation process as an "embarrassment" -- a "vapid and hollow charade."
But now, White House officials say Kagan has dropped those ideas altogether...
"Does anyone, anywhere, believe that her 'reversal' is motivated by anything other than a desire to avoid adhering to the standards she tried to impose on others?," asks attorney Glenn Greenwald, a vocal Kagan critic. It's a good question, since applying standards fairly and uniformly is a key quality that many people look for in judges.
The broader issue is whether the U.S. Senate will find a way to dispense with a review of judicial nominees that purports to ignore ideology and judicial values - a process that everyone who is not up for confirmation rightly sees as, yes, a charade. Even senators admit it...
Many people would prefer an honest airing of the views, ideology and legal principles of the people headed for the most powerful lifetime job in America. President Obama may have uncorked more than he bargained for, in nominating a qualified, talented but largely unknown attorney -- who happens to have a clear record supporting ideological candor for nominees -- in order to fill the large, liberal shoes of Justice John Paul Stevens.
Let's learn more about her. She's not Sarah Palin and she's not an umpire. Here's hoping the White House will free Elena Kagan. Or that she frees herself.
-- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ari-melber/f...
Sister Irma,
Thanks for the update on what the right is saying, because I'm still trying to find out more about her. I want to post some more stuff from the right.. here's a guy from Citizen Link.Com
Focus on the Family Action Senior Vice President Tom Minnery said the nomination was a disappointment.
["Kagan's nomination is a triumph for liberal ideology and judicial activism," he said. "She has never been a judge, nor written a judicial opinion. In fact, she has very limited experience in the actual practice of law. Her resume reveals her to be an academic who has served liberal judges, liberal presidents and liberal universities. Her entire career has been lived in a narrow slice of the judicial spectrum."]
http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A0...