Realizing that the retirement of Justice Stevens threatened to leave the Supreme Court without a military veteran, the Committee for Justice and others urged President Obama to replace Stevens with someone who has “the military experience necessary to understand and evaluate the government’s national security arguments.” Most importantly, Justice Stevens himself talked recently about the importance of having “at least one person on the Court who had military experience.” It was disappointing enough when the President showed no interest in this important concern. But in selecting Elena Kagan, Obama has chosen to replace the Court’s last veteran with a nominee who essentially spit in the eye of America’s armed forces. Kagan banished military recruiters from the Harvard Law School campus during a time of war, after pronouncing our armed forces guilty of “a moral injustice of the first order” for carrying out the Clinton Administration’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
Millions of Americans will be outraged when they learn that Obama has picked a Supreme Court nominee with a demonstrated hostility to the very armed forces that make our freedom and constitutional rights possible. But that’s just one reason why President Obama is in for a more difficult confirmation fight than he bargained for when he chose Kagan.
Kagan starts out with more than thirty votes against her confirmation to the High Court. Only seven Republican senators voted to confirm her as Solicitor General 14 months ago. Now she faces the less deferential standard applied to lifetime Supreme Court appointments, an emboldened Republican Party, nervous red state Democratic senators, and a public concerned about the nation’s leftward drift.
Added to that mix will be scrutiny of Kagan’s out-of-the-mainstream views on gay rights, which are sure to generate controversy and vigorous opposition. Kagan’s argument that “don’t ask, don’t tell” justifies kicking the military off campus was unanimously rejected by the Supreme Court in 2006, placing her to the left of even the Court’s most liberal Justices on the issue of gay rights and the First Amendment. Moreover, Kagan allowed her obviously strong feelings about gay rights to interfere with her duties as Solicitor General. At least twice during the last year, in cases involving challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act and the “don’t ask, don’t tell policy,” Kagan failed to vigorously defend federal law despite her institutional obligation and promise to senators to do so.
At a time when the number one goal of the purveyors of judicial activism is the discovery of a right to gay marriage in the U.S. Constitution, the American people should be worried about this nominee’s views on gay rights. However, in light of speculation and White House denials concerning Kagan’s sexual orientation, let me be clear that it is Kagan’s constitutional orientation and not her sexual orientation that is a legitimate cause for concern.
President Obama’s selection of Kagan is particularly disappointing given that the potential nominees he considered included at least two highly respected judges with a proven track record of moderation – Merrick Garland and Leah Ward Sears. Conservatives made it clear that they would have a hard time opposing either nominee. While no nominee would silence all the President’s critics, Garland or Sears would have been widely seen as a bipartisan, non-ideological choice and either would likely have been confirmed by an overwhelming margin in the Senate. Instead, the President chose to pick a fight with Republicans.
Perhaps picking a fight is part of the President’s reported strategy of using the confirmation debate to portray Democrats and the judges they chose as protectors of the “little guy.” If so, Elena Kagan is a strange choice because her background is far more elitist than humble. In addition to heading Harvard Law School, one of the most elite schools in the world, and serving as a Clinton Administration politico, Kagan was a paid member of a Goldman Sachs board during the height of Wall Street’s excesses.
It’s not clear how the White House can portray Elena Kagan as a woman of the people, but it is apparent that the Administration plans to portray Kagan as a moderate by calling the press’s attention to the concerns of some on the Left that she is not a genuine liberal. It is hard to know if concerns expressed on the Left are borne of disingenuousness or just a propensity to worry. However, the bottom line is that it’s downright silly to imagine that a fervent supporter of gay rights who thrived on the Harvard Law School faculty and in the Clinton Administration and embraces Justice Thurgood Marshall’s approach to judging will turn out to be a closet conservative once on the High Court.
Specifically, Kagan described Justice Marshall’s view of the judiciary – that its primary mission is to “show a special solicitude for the despised and disadvantaged” and “to safeguard the interests of people who had no other champion” (Kagan’s words) – as “a thing of glory.” The Kagan / Marshall judicial philosophy sounds an awful lot like President Obama’s promise to appoint judges with “the empathy to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom [or] poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old,” a view of judging that even the very liberal Sonia Sotomayor rejected last summer.
Particularly because the American people are concerned like never before about unrestrained federal power, Elena Kagan’s view of a judge’s role is a real threat to her confirmation, as Judiciary Committee Ranking member Jeff Sessions has noted. After all, a Supreme Court that is free to ignore the law in order to “show a special solicitude” for the interests of certain groups or to discover new rights in the Constitution – such as a right to gay marriage – is an insitution whose power is essentially limitless.
For example, when the constitutionality of ObamaCare comes before the Supreme Court, as is inevitable, will a Justice Kagan decide that “special solicitude” for the disadvantaged is served by okaying Obama’s federalization of health care or, instead, by protecting the rights of those who do not want to be coerced into purchasing health insurance? In other words, it is hard to see how the Kagan / Marshall standard puts any limits on a Justice’s indulgence of their personal policy preferences.
Kagan’s troubling statements about judicial philosophy will take on added significance given her thin record, which includes a puzzling dearth of academic scholarship after more than a decade in academia. Her thin record also makes it vital that the White House release, in a timely manner, the documents Kagan produced while serving as President Clinton’s associate counsel and domestic policy advisor.
Finally, given her thin record, Kagan owes it to the American people to engage in an open and honest debate with senators about her judicial philosophy and other controversial views. One hopes that Kagan agrees, given her assertion that “when the Senate ceases to engage nominees in meaningful discussion of legal issues, the confirmation process takes on an air of vacuity and farce.”
By Curt Levey, The Committee for Justice
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Not only is she unfit to serve based on her merits and experience, she is unfit because she is prejudiced and being a flaming gay liberal, that makes her biased against those who may oppose that life style. Just look at her decision at Harvard regarding the military recruiters. Her homsexual bias is the reason she made this decision. She is not of sound mind and free of prejudice enough to rule and judge impartially. And, of course, since Obama picked her, she had to be one of his own image types: Know Nothings, Do Nothings, Who Have Never Held a Private Sector Job and has Zero Real World Experiences.
What is it with this anti-American extremist, can't he appoint a true blooded American, I guess he just doesn't know any ???
If she is selected Col. Ludak (spelling) will probably end up at hard labor for having the audacuty to insist on seeing Obama's birth certificate before he would deploy to Afganistan. Is this why she has been selected by Obama?
There is a stench in the air and it ain't coming from the Gulf of Mexico. Our poor, battered Repubic. A nation over run by enemy antagonist posers with very odd conceptions. Is it too late to pray?
Its never too late to pray but WE have been silent so long Will God Listen!!
He has no authority to appoint judges or anybody else untill he produces a bonafide birth certificate. He is NOT my president. He is just a controlled mouthpiece for his marxist handlers.
WAKE UP AMERICA!!! Our Gay, Marxist, Islamic President is hellbent on making this great nation a third world unarmed nation for an easy takeover. He will sacrifice every Democrat to accomplish this.That is why he is trying to disarm the American people, He is setting us up for the One World Government. He has purchased over a million dollars worth of Riot Gear for our Qrmy to use againnst us. He is making it so bad that he is expecting us to riot before this is over.
I find it hard to believe Obumer is controlled by Muslims when nearly everyone in his White House is jewish, from his first appointee, RAHM EMANUEL etal.
Hey OldTimer, I just wanted to point out that, although many members of Obama's filthy administration are indeed Jewish, this would not be the first time Jews have gone against themselves in order to win their long term agenda. Look at the Jewish organized and funded Bolshevik/Communist Revolution in 1917,yes? Don't believe for one minute that the Jews in the White House will ever do anything but come up smelling like roses, no matter what kind of fecal matter they roll around in. God Bless..peace.
He only picks radicals like himself. That I expect. What I DON'T expect is for the Republicans to be polite about this. This radical would be appointed FOR LIFE…that means she will hold sway over us until either WE die or she does. She is unfit for this job. The Repubs had better filibuster and grill her so that everyone knows just who this person is.
Amen I hope the gop's don't cave in. And GOP'S If we have a voice we meed to scream loudly NOW BEFORE ITS TOO LATE`
November will tell the tale. If we the People do not get off our collective indifferent rear-ends and vote for all candidates opposed to these blatant dismantlers of our Nation, then we are finished. Here in Indiana Republican voters rejected a good man in the recent primary and will run a prodigal turned lobbyist in the Fall. Raises questions about voter IQ or the validity of the voting machines. If this downward spiral into immorality and blasphemy continues, God Himself will wipe his hands of this "generation". Look at this world and all of its fashions and amusements and ask yourself- "Is God pleased?".
DeeJay, are you saying that Indiana is using electronic voting machines….are you kidding me??!! Those machines were proven to have been hacked in the 2004 Presidential Election in Ohio. Proven and testified about to a Senate Select Commission as a matter of fact. Unbelievable!
On election day we fill in our ballot and feed it into this little toaster oven sized contraption- electronic? Whatever, I don't trust any ballot system, save the old mark it and stick it in a box to be counted by the church ladies. Politicians and their hacks have proven that they are undeserving of trust. Coates will be running this Fall as Republican in the Senate race to replace Evan Bayh. Bayh is an honorable man. Coates "works" as a lobbyist making mucho dinaro. Makes one wonder why these people run for an office that pays a third as much??? A good family man with high values who is in the Indiana House named Stutzman was also on the ballot and was rejected. Stupid voters or seedy politics??? Lots of things don't make sense in America anymore.
I am shocked the NWO boss's want such a unqualified person, so whats the real reason behind her appointment.
What happening to our world? The black man sitting in our WhiteHouse is trying every angle to destroy our country and its values. The Tea Party is an excellent move, but I truly believe we're going to have to do a great deal more to wake our country up. We've all set back far too long and let them do what they wanted, it's time for things to change. The sad thing being, 40% of our citizens are on some form of welfare, and you can bet they won't jump in and help take their country back if it cuts off their food stamps, medicaid, and housing. They don't want to work, and be productive, responsible individuals, they want everything handed to them on a platter…WAKE UP AMERICA, WE'VE GOT A LOT TO ACCOMPLISH, AND A SHORT TIME TO DO IT. We think illegals and terrorist are our problem???
think again. Let's start out by removing all the illegals, securing our borders, and then clean up our own country with our military here protecting the U.S.A.
I agree that we should remove all the illegals, especially Obama because he is the biggest illagal and because he refuses to display his Citzenship documents, which we know that will never happen. By appointing Elena Kagan, Obama is displaying his contempt against our Freedoms, Religion, the Constitution, Bill of Rights and in general our way of life. God Help Us All.
In the Bible – a book many can't/won't read, it talks about the arrival of / the time of the "Great Deceiver." The Bible also talks about the people not being able to see the signs right before them. Review the messages above, look at the news – both reported, and mis-reported. Look around the world. Is it better? Are we better off, or did we sell out our children to foreign debt obligations? Look at BHO's Cabinet. Where can even he find good advice when the peeps he surrounds himself with are incompetent tax cheats, wealthy elites and demagogues of every worthless sort? BHO spent over $800k to hide his birth records, and his college records – could they show his true birthplace? BHO took $81k into his personal presidential election fund from BP, then his own Dept lead gave BP a special safety exclusion…. If this is "Leadership," and if it's not stopped, then we are headed straight to Hell.
All one has to do is take one look at Kagan and know which side of the gender issue she is on. She even looks like a man. Soooooooooo, what else in new in this White House. Obama has surrounded himself with all sorts of malcontents, misfits, perverts who would never succeed any place they had to do a real days work or think rationally or even pay their taxes. The crooked White House is the ONLY place these evil people fit in because they are working in the cesspool of Lucifer/Obama!
Well, has not it been said that "Birds of a feather tend to flock together"? Well Kagan and Obama are similar birds, both have totally nil in the way of experience and both are far leftists who are enamored of the idea that we should be a socialist nation under total government control. I sure pray that the electorate will become angry enough to throw out the Democrats bag and baggage in November so we can get our nation out of the clutches of these very evil people!
WELL WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU EXPECT FROM THIS REIGN OF TERROR IN THE BLACKHOUSE??? COMRADE OBAMA ISNT QUALIFIED TO RUN THIS COUNTRY SO DONT EXPECT HIM TO CHOSE SOMEONE WHO WOULD BE QUALIFIED TO SIT ON THE SUPREME COURT. UNTIL WE THE PEOPLE GET RID OF THIS RACIST AND THE FOOLS WHO SURROUND HIM WE ARE GOING TO BE A SPLIT NATION. WHEN SOLIDARITY DISAPPEARS OUR NATIONS STANDARD OF QUALITY ALSO DISAPPEARS. I EXPECT NOTHING GOOD OUT OF THIS PRESIDENCY(AND I USE THE TERM LOOSELY) AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I AM SEEING—NOTHING BUT EXCESSIVE BAD JUDGEMENT.