Kagan New Justice, Judicial Skills Irrelevant

06 August 2010 |permalink | email article

Senate confirmation makes Elena Kagan, 50, only the fourth woman in history to serve on the Supreme Court at a crucial time when that branch of government is growing more assertive in placing a conservative stamp on decisions under right-leaning Chief Justice John Roberts.

In the final vote, 5 Republicans joined 56 Democrats and 2 independents in supporting the nomination; 36 Republicans and one Democrat, opposed her. It’s an increasing sign of partisan political polarization of fights over Supreme Court nominees, who in years past were backed by both parties in the absence of some disqualifying factor.

It was fascinating to observe how most Senate Republicans challenged Kagan until the bitter end, in part because she was just a former Harvard Law School dean and Obama’s solicitor general. The kicker was supposed to be her lack of any judicial experience. It was a specious argument.

In point of fact Kagan is the 41st successful Supreme Court nominee to lack such a credential, a fact Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader and his Party of No, chose to conveniently overlook.

The drum roll is often impressive, and includes William Rehnquist; Earl Warren; William O. Douglas; Felix Frankfurter;  Louis Brandeis; Charles Evans Hughes; Lewis Powell; Robert Jackson; John Marshall; and John Jay.

What’s revealing is California Republican U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina cited the solicitor general’s “complete lack of experience as a jurist” to suggest she could not faithfully interpret the Constitution, and in many cases, to exercise judicial restraint. Once fired as Hewlett-Packard CEO, Fiorina is a clueless political novice.

Psycho Zone

“I think he’s incompetent, and I think he’s in over his head. And I think he’s really in flux when it comes to what his governing philosophy is. He has a choice of defending with the people in this nation of laws, and you can see where he’s headed.” Sarah Palin, on Fox News, the right wing’s mother ship, while opining Obama lacks experience, failing to note she left the governor’s office halfway through her first term. Her boorish effort to provide “context” to her trash talk last weekend that the President lacked the “cojones” shown by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on immigration, confirms she’s a political meteor, not a comet. I mean, notes on her hand!

 

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