The confirmation hearings of Elena Kagan are proceeding, and there's very little doubt in my mind that what we essentially have here is a rubber stamp for President Obama.
What Obama did here was to take a lesson from his own past and pick someone who, as much as possible, is simply a factual enigma. Someone about whom it takes real digging to unearth how far Left and out of the mainstream they actually are.
I especially liked the part where Senator Jeff Sessions asked her if she agreed with the assessment of Ron Klain, an adviser to Al Gore in the Clinton administration, that she was a "legal progressive," and of Greg Craig, the former White House counsel in the Obama administration, that she was a "progressive in the mold of Obama himself" and she responded 'Uh, I'm not sure what that is'.
I guess she's been taking private lessons on dissembling from her old boss Mr. Bill.
Even funnier, she contradicted herself out of her own mouth when she stated a minute or so later "My politics would be, must be, have to be completely separate from my judging."
Having never been a judge, not even having any practical legal experience, how exactly is she determining that 'distance'? And if she claims not to know what a legal' progressive' is, why else would she almost immediately say that? And as for her politics being separate...does anyone actually think she would have gotten the nomination from Obama if they actually were?
She's still defending her illegal discrimination against military recruiters at Harvard over 'don't ask don't tell' claiming that she was trying to 'find a balance' between access for the military recruiters and Harvard's stance on non-discrimination.
Which gives rise to some followups...
'Don't ask don't tell' was the brainchild of Mr. Bill's administration, and based on a law passed by Congress that her old boss signed. Why was the military the only federal agency discriminated against by Harvard?
Why the misstatement of fact on her part that military recruiters did not have access as Kagan said, when in fact they actually didn't because no campus group sponsored them or gave them office space? And if it was 'balanced', why did Harvard's then President Larry Summers ultimately quash her when the university was threatened with penalties under the Solomon Amendment?
If Elena Kagan was so exercised about gay rights while she was a Harvard dean, why didn't she scream bloody murder about Harvard accepting a mere $20 million from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a member of the Saudi Royal family to establish a center for 'Islamic Studies' and shariah law - which mandates the death penalty for gays?
Her commitment to the First Amendment also came under fire as the GOP members of the Judiciary Committee,notably Orin Hatch took apart her advocacy of quashing freedom of speech in her advocacy of the Obama Administration's side of the Citizens United ruling.
Elena Kagan may very well end up getting confirmed, but no one should be under any illusion of whom she is and what we're getting.
Just as the Wise Latina was a deliberate attempt to replace David Souter who was relatively center left with a far left ideologue, Kagan's nomination is an attempt to replace a very activist, left leaning justice with one whom is even more so.
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