Obama's New Court Pick - The Politics Of Cronyism

As expected, President Obama named Solicitor General Elena Kagan as his Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice John Paul Stevens.

This ranks with the Harriet Miers nomination as one of the most blatant examples of crony nominations on record. As a matter of fact,since Miers had actually been a practicing attorney for some time, it's worse.

Elana Kagan is basically a creature of academia. She has no practical legal experience whatsoever. She's never served as a judge or even argued a case in front of an appellate court. In fact, before she became Solicitor General just a year ago, she had never argued a case anywhere. And she's scarcely even done any legal writing.

What she does have going for her is that she's an old pal of Obama's and Bill Ayers' from Chicago and Harvard, a well connected ex-Clintonista and Democrat fund raiser and a nominee with the right political views whose avoided leaving much of a problematic paper trail.

What's known about her views? Not much. She seems to have a fairly instinctive dislike of the military like many on the Left,as shown by her championing barring military recruiters from Harvard in violation of the Solomon Amendment, claiming that it somehow violates the First Amendment for the US to withhold funds from colleges that ban the military from recruiting on campus. That piece of legal reasoning was unanimously rejected by the entire Supreme Court.

My friend William over at Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion reasons that her answers on the questionnaires she filled out for the Senate as part of the confirmation process for Solicitor General show that she does not see a right to same-sex marriage in the Constitution. To which I would reply that (a) people lie, especially when it's to get a lifetime job from which they can't be fired and (b) people 'change' once they have that job in their pocket.

Oddly enough, one thing that seems to be on a lot of people's mind ( and especially on the cerebral wave patterns of the semi-human Andrew Sullivan) is the important question 'is she gay?'

Who cares which restaurant she eats at? I certainly don't. As a matter of fact, if that's somehow a criteria, I vote for a slot on the court for Tammy Bruce, who's equally as qualified, has done a heckuva lot more decent writing and undoubtedly has a great deal more common sense.

Kagan also seems to favor a broadening of the Executive power, which undoubtedly suits Obama just fine.

As a matter of fact, one could ultimately say that about all or most of her views. Does anyone think she'd have gotten the nomination from Obama if she really was 'moderate' or 'centrist' as she's being painted? I smell a stealth candidate.

Look for this to heat up around August.At 50 years old and with lifetime tenure, Kagan could extend Obama's court legacy by decades.

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