Guess the competition for an overnight shift at 7-11 was too brisk.
Barack Obama, needing only a cup of coffee in the Senate before having enough experience to become the leader of the free world, now wants to hand a lifetime judicial appointment to the Supreme Court to someone who has never been a judge a day in her life.
Sure, she’s been an attorney. But Harriet Miers was an attorney.
Solicitor General Elena Kagan has an impressive resume, to be sure. After all, the Associated Press said so. The AP also calls her “sharp,” “politically saavy,” with a “blazing legal career.”
And that’s in an “opinion-free news story.”
Doubtlessly liberal with her Harvard Law and Clinton Administration pedigree, the question only becomes if a judge’s first judicial appointment should be the Supreme Court. Since she’s liberal, it won’t matter what her stand with regards to cases would be. Only conservatives are questioned on that front. The media defends liberals inherent right to lie and pretend to be centrist.
But shouldn’t a Supreme Court Justice really have been a judge somewhere? Sometime? Shouldn’t a Justice make a decision tougher than white or red wine before a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land?
Shouldn’t we have some hint of judicial temperament, application of law, and constitutional view other than what they won’t say under oath in a Senate confirmation?
All we’re left with is she’s unmarried, has no children, and attacked the military’s policy on gays by barring military recruiters from Harvard.
Elections can be won by anybody. Lifetime judicial appointments to the Supreme Court shouldn’t go to rookies who never served a day in their lives on the bench.
Period!
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Update
Statement of RPV Chairman Pat Mullins on President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee
“Unlike every other current member of the high court, Elena Kagan has never been a judge on any court. She has virtually no legal paper trail to show Senators how she views the role of the judiciary or her interpretation of the U.S. Constitution,” he said. “She issued no decision, wrote no opinions. Until she was appointed to her present post, Kagan hadn’t even argued before an appellate court.”
“The only real insight we have into Kagan’s legal thinking is an amicus brief she signed while Dean of Harvard Law School, in which she defended the practice of banning military recruiters from college campuses,” Mullins said. “While that insight is limited, it is troubling.”
“At a time when Americans are more concerned than ever about the Federal government intruding into their daily lives, I think Virginians will have some real concerns about her ability to serve as a genuine check on an out-of-control Washington, D.C. and strictly adhere to the U.S. Constitution.” he added. “I call on Senators Mark Warner and Jim Webb to ask the tough questions and get some real answers about her judicial philosophy, rather than simply rubber stamp President Obama’s nominee.
“Solicitor General Elena Kagan is for the most part a legal blank slate — an uncertain gamble for the Senate to take given the high court’s life tenure, and something that Senators Warner and Webb need to seriously consider.”
