This Time It Counts! (Supreme Court confirmation edition)

We need to rethink the whole Supreme Court confirmation hearing process. Right now, it's spectacularly boring, mostly because of the lack of drama. Kagan will get up, say nothing of consequence, and eventually be confirmed essentially along party lines. This, despite writing herself in 1995 that judicial nominees need to speak up and actually answer questions.

Sexual Orientation, Sex Life, and Elena Kagan

Glenn Greenwald wrote the following today:

Perhaps it's naïveté, but I've been amazed by the outraged objections of many Good Liberals to the mere discussion of Elena Kagan's sexual orientation. Without realizing it, they've completely internalized one of the most pernicious myths long used to demand that gay people remain in the closet: namely, that to reveal one's sexual orientation is to divulge one's "sex life."

Well, he's got it part right, and part wrong. He explains:

PostPartisan Adds Zero Value to the Kagan Discussion

The PostPartisan link (which we have listed in our collection) is pretty funny.

On the Elena Kagan nomination to the Supreme Court, the White House has won the initial battle -- the battle over expectations.... Kagan’s qualifications for the court can only be called thin.... She cannot be regarded as a strong nominee, but the White House clearly believes she is a safe nominee.... During a pastel career, Kagan made one neon decision -- to ban military recruiters from the Office of Career Services when she was dean of Harvard Law School, based on her strong opposition to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy....Standing in the way of military recruiters may seem normal in academic circles, but it will seem radical in much of the country....This may not be enough to derail the Kagan nomination, but it will complicate it.

That's his whole story, basically. He starts out by saying that her record is thin, and her greatest asset is the ease of her nomination. He then proceeds to nitpick this one thing that might make her nomination harder, saying Obama gravely miscalulated but it probably won't derail her nomination.

So 1) Kagan's one virtue - ease of nomination - won't be so easy. (I also think Republicans will make up something if it isn't there, and his one military recruiter thing might very well be on the list, but it hardly matters), and 2) Obama gravely miscalculated, except it won't derail his nomination.

He claimed two things, and then refuted them. What exactly was the point of his post?

A collection of resources on Elena Kagan

Here are a few thought-provoking pieces on Obama's latest SCOTUS nomination, Elena Kagan:

• Her record of hiring almost exclusively White Men at Harvard Law School:
• The Race-Based Case Against Elena Kagan - Coffee House Talks
• Kagan’s Harvard Hiring Record a Vision in White - RaceWire
• On Kagan's Minority Hiring Record - 538
• Why Did Dean Kagan Preside Over a Whitened Harvard Law School? - RacismReview
• Her political ideology:
• Elena Kagan Is a Progressive on Executive Power - Slate.com
• Obama’s Next Supreme Court Pick :: Moderate or Strong Liberal? - thinkculture
• Will Kagan Take Up Stevens's Fight for Checks on Executive Power? - The Nation
• Centrist Kagan Brings ‘Impeccable’ Record, Says Cornell Law Expert - Newswise
• Why the inscrutable Elena Kagan makes everyone nervous. - Slate.com
  
• Her readiness:
• Untried, Untested, and Ready - Slate.com
• The latest on Elena Kagan - Salon.com
• Elena Kagan's Pastel Career - Washington Post's PostPartisan

The Race-Based Case Against Elena Kagan

This piece was originally posted on April 28, 2010 upon speculation that Elena Kagan would be nominated to the supreme court. We are reposting it due to news that she has actually been nominated.

Glenn Greenwald has been busily documenting the case against Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court (and for Diane Wood). Essentially, his main case against Kagan boils down to the fact that we (stunningly, since she's been an academic for twenty years) have no paper record of her, and the little we have shows that she has scary leanings on executive power and would move the court farther to the right on that crucial modern-day issue where Obama is as bad as Bush in every respect.

I believe that critique powerful, as we don't want to go in blind, but I want to highlight another, very troubling bit about Elena Kagan documented by Duke law professor (and Michigan Law grad/Michigan Journal of Race & Law founder and 2010 symposium speaker!) Guy-Uriel Charles (and quoted in yesterday's article by GG)

The Race-Based Case Against Elena Kagan

Glenn Greenwald has been busily documenting the case against Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court (and for Diane Wood). Essentially, his main case against Kagan boils down to the fact that we (stunningly, since she's been an academic for twenty years) have no paper record of her, and the little we have shows that she has scary leanings on executive power and would move the court farther to the right on that crucial modern-day issue where Obama is as bad as Bush in every respect.

I believe that critique powerful, as we don't want to go in blind, but I want to highlight another, very troubling bit about Elena Kagan documented by Duke law professor (and Michigan Law grad/Michigan Journal of Race & Law founder and 2010 symposium speaker!) Guy-Uriel Charles (and quoted in yesterday's article by GG)