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More About Supreme Court Nominee
Elena Kagan
Part One of Three By Dave Andrusko Part Two ponders "Where We Come From." At "National Right to Life News Today" (www.nationalrightolifenewstoday.org), we ask, "Do Babies Know the Difference Between Good and Evil?" and explore even more breakthroughs in the use of adult stem cells. Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you'd like, follow me at http://twitter.com/daveha.
As promised, I'll try to keep you up to date on the comings and goings surrounding the Supreme Court nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to replace pro-abortion Justice John Paul Stevens. Right now the 50-year-old Kagan is "meeting and greeting" many of the key Senate players. By all accounts, she is saying virtually nothing, which is keeping with someone who is bringing new meaning to the phrase "stealth candidate." Three items for Thursday. According to Rasmussen Reports, when people were asked right after the announcement, most believed Kagan, a Harvard Law School graduate who also served as its Dean, will be confirmed. Nothing unexpected there; this poll was taken just after the public learned that pro-abortion President Barack Obama had selected her out of the four candidates he personally interviewed. More interesting is that 45% of all voters had a favorable opinion of Kagan, as opposed to 39% who had an unfavorable opinion, according to Rasmussen. (Sixteen percent had no opinion of her.) This could mean a lot or very little. At the least it may suggest the public understands that she is coming as a judicial rookie, having never served on the bench at any level. Senator Jeff Session of Alabama told the New York Times, "My view is that her experience is very thin." Sessions, the Ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "You do not have to be a judge to go on the Supreme Court; I acknowledge that. But I think if you're not a judge, I would like to have seen somebody in the harness of the practice of law for a number of years, who demonstrated discipline." Second, to its credit, the Times ran a piece by Peter Baker which candidly discussed the significance of a memo Kagan wrote while working for the Clinton Administration during the fight over NRLC-led efforts to ban partial-birth abortions. If you read the Washington Post's account, you'd have thought Kagan was a closet moderate, looking for a "middle ground." The Times' headline cut right to the chase: "As Clinton Aide, Kagan Recommended Tactical Support for an Abortion Ban," although the first sentence is even more to the point: "Elena Kagan, President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, once recommended to President Bill Clinton that he support a Democratic-sponsored ban on some late-term abortions as a way to defeat a stronger measure gaining momentum in the Senate." How so? "As a White House domestic policy aide, Ms. Kagan sent Mr. Clinton a memorandum urging him to endorse the ban sponsored by Senator Tom Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota," Baker wrote. "The memo anticipated that the Daschle plan would fail but suggested that it would provide political cover for enough senators to stick by the president when he ultimately vetoed the tougher bill sponsored by Republicans." Interestingly, this echoes the conclusion reached by NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson in 1997. "The Clinton-Daschle proposal is a political construct, designed to provide political cover for lawmakers who want to appear to their constituents as if they have voted to restrict partial-birth abortions, while actually voting for a hollow measure that is not likely to prevent a single partial-birth abortion, and which therefore is inoffensive to the pro-abortion lobby," Johnson told a Joint Hearing Before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and The Constitution Subcommittee of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. Third, there are rationalizations aplenty why no one should take seriously Kagan's blistering critique of the Supreme Court confirmation process which strongly made the case for ferreting out a nominee's "judicial philosophy and views." Her book review, which appeared in the Spring 1995 edition of the University of Chicago Law Review, was titled, "Confirmation Messes, Old and New." Kagan lamented the "stonewalling" she witnessed, which made a "serious discussion" of a whole host of important issues next to impossible. A "repetition of platitudes," she wrote, "serves little educative function except perhaps to reinforce lessons of cynicism that citizens often glean from government. …A process so empty may seem ever so tidy--muted. Polite. And restrained--but all that good order comes at great cost." The problem, Kagan concluded, "is not that senators engage in substantive discussion with Supreme Court nominees; the problem is that they do not." Please send your thoughts to daveandrusko@gmail.com. You can read Kagan's book review at www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Confirmation-Messes.pdf |
