Comments

1

More to the point...when's the last time someone remotely attractive got nominated?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Elena_…

(Oh, yea...Zoe Baird...but they shot her down for that.)
2
Gentle editorial nudge, D - "like a white guy CAN'T catch a break."

Given the recent state rulings (like in Oklahoma) that seek to restrict a woman's right to an abortion, I'm all fine w/ more women being nominated the the highest court in the land. Maybe Roe will remain mostly unchallenged that way.

Not to view this in a single-issue way. But there's the knee-jerk.
3
ginsburg won't be there for long. will he replace her with a woman, too? a black woman would make the right stroke out, barack. do it.
4
If she really is gay, I wonder if she'll vote on cases with a clitoral interpretation of the Constitution.
5
Oh my God! You mean people who make up half of our population are now making up a third of the Supreme Court? Surely this will spell the end of neutrality!

@3: And the stroke victims would leave the door open for more minorities to take their places. DO IT.
6
Ugh. A closeted, right-wing, possible racist with absolutely zip known about her legal views? Strike 3, Farce Advocate.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_…
7
I was rooting for Elizabeth Warren, but that's another woman.
8
Oh Dan! Love you, love you, you funny, man! xo
9
Can someone pass on the message from overseas that the entire planet is tired of listening to the Republican's histrionics? They just appear to be seething over Obama's existence now.

BTW, the Chinese would LOVE a Palin win in 2012.
10
I'm absolutely certain that by tomorrow afternoon, Elena Kagan will be called the most rabidly Liberal, socialist, communist, activist judge in American history, by the usual people. And that years ago her news paper was delivered by a boy who now wears a pot-leaf T-shirt. Let the right-wing smear machine run full capacity.
11
@4 if she really is gay--or the minute a Republican asks that question during confirmation hearings--this will turn more pear shaped than Clarence Thomas's own confirmation did.

What will be VERY funny is if she IS gay, and the minute a case involving gay rights comes up. You know some group like the US Bishops will ask her to recuse... but won't ask for Scalia to recuse.
12
This was probably inevitable. All the white dudes keep asking him for his "REAL" birth certificate.
13
She will not be confirmed, after having been pilloried by every Republican and some of the Democrats, and then Obama will nominate his real pick and they'll have to let that person through or they'll look like real pricks. A nice Bush trick; it will probably work for Obama also.
14
What's up with the horrendous NYT photo of her giant neck? It's like they chose *the* most unflattering photo of the poor chick and slapped it on their website. Fuck's sake.
15
He nominated Dawn Johnsen to head OLC at the same time he did Kagan for Solicitor. Then his people left Johnsen--our best hope of getting the Bush-era torture tactics safely behind us-- twisting in the wind until she withdrew. Creepy. I hope Kagan gets better treatment if the heat comes on. I'm sure she's aware in the hands of the Obama team she needs to keep watching her ass.
16
Ooh, mixed my metaphors nicely, with the hands and the ass and all.
17
@14 - I like Kagan, but she does sorta have that Jon Lovitts look going on.
18
Dear God:

You gave us Bush for eight years. You owe us. Please please please please give us the big Jewish lesbian on the Supreme Court. I know she worked for Goldman Sachs. I don't care. You can keep the pony and the time machine and the fourteen inch penis. I'll trade it all if you put the big Jewish lesbian on the Supreme Court.

Sincerely,
Judah
19

Dan Savage thinks he wants a lot of powerful women running the country, but what happens when the heterosexual ones start poaching his supply of 25 year old dream boys.

Imagine him getting cuckolded by Justice Sotomayor as she uses the "power of office" and a twirl of the cigar to steal his tender darlings away from him.

Dan, you'll be sitting at home stewing, and ruing the day you ever cheered on Barack Obama!
20
It'll be okay for white dudes-when she was dean at Harvard-29 out of 30 of her hires were white, and 23 of those were men!

VIVA DIVERSITY.
21
Dan:

In two days I finish my first year of law school. So I'm about as "qualified" as the girl who was posting here last summer, offering "commentary" on Sotomayor's confirmation hearings.

What I'm getting at is: Can I have access to Slog to post equally desired "commentary" on the confirmation hearings?

Get at me.
22
@6: In response to that article: Sure, it's annoying that we don't have any published opinions giving us an indication of where Kagan is going to take the Court. But Obama clearly isn't thrilled about the Roberts Court's direction (see: State of the Union), and he's stoked on Kagan. Without a paper trail, what are the Republicans going to use to shoot her down at the confirmation hearings?
23
"Including myself, every judge who’s been appointed to the court since Lewis Powell [in 1971] has been more conservative than his or her predecessor. Except maybe Justice Ginsburg."
-- John Paul Stevens

Sadly, Elena Kagan will be no exception.

This might have been Obama's only chance to get a truly progressive thinker through the confirmation process. But, as usual, he's surrounded by too much D.C. "conventional political wisdom" at all times. So he's blown it.
24
Obviously, it's cause white males have problems with hiring illegal nannies.
25
@13 - That's exactly what I've been thinking. Kagan is Obama's Harriet Myers. She'll never fly, then once she's done the crash and burn, Obaba will nominate his real choice.

@20 - sure she hired 20 men while she was dean, but it was Harvard, so she was actually butcher than 2/3rds of them, so it's really like she only hired the equivalent of 10 men.
26
Not impressed.

#1 We really do not know her views and, as Greenwald suggests, they are not liberal.

#2 She is an overweight smoker. We needed somebody who could pull the court left for a long time. Actuarially speaking, her life expectancy is not great.
27
@13, 25--Y'all crazy.

Kagan is as comparable to Harriet Miers-Brown as Thurgood Marshall is to a wagonload of shit. The Big Jewish Lesbian's a shoo-in unless some HUGE scandal unseats her. And that's not gonna happen, since she been vetted before for the nom that went to Sotomayor.

TBJL is gonna get her BJL ass on that bench AND is gonna make the Republican Guard look totally foolish in the process. Expect them to lose seats in November.
28
dan you're hilarious.
i heart you at times.
29
I'm totally feeling like a 9th class citizen with my 700 billion dollar bailout.
30
@ 23 - To be fair, Stevens more or less moved left over the course of his tenure. Of course, it could just be that the other justices got more conservative during Stevens' 36 years on the bench. So, who knows.

As for whether Kagan's a lesbian or not, well, it seems that even personal friends are rolling her eyes at the question and saying she isn't. And obviously a fondness for short hair and flat shoes doesn't define lesbianism. But if she is straight, then I need to take my gaydar into the shop for repairs.

I also think it doesn't matter, but there is going to be some nasty, nasty subtext during the confirmation hearing.

In any event, the idea that you actually need judicial experience to be on the Court is a pretty new concept. Sure, it can be one indication that you're qualified, but it's far from the only indication. Thurgood Marshall for instance--whom, coincidentally enough, Kagan clerked for after law school--was appointed by Johnson straight out of the Solicitor General post.

As for her views...well, no one is actually really sure where she stands on the hot-button issues. Her tenure as SG doesn't really tell us much, because she just has to advocate for the Government's position. Most of her scholarship has been on administrative law - and her views on admin actually line up most closely with Scalia's. But administrative law doesn't usually tend to line up so neatly on liberal-conservative ideological lines as many other areas.

I will say this much: People who say she's "not qualified" - which is quite different from saying that it's preferable to have someone with bench experience - are out of their damn minds. And for a woman who doesn't break five feet, she's intimidating as hell.

I think she's going to be confirmed, but I also think that the confirmation hearings are going to be a complete shitshow. Considering how much flak Sotomayor got over "wise Latina," I can't imagine what kind of ridiculousness the Republicans are going to stir up over Rumsfeld v. FAIR.

(@ 20 - I know for a fact that at least one of those while male hires is gay as hell. Does that count for something?)
31
Rolling their eyes. Their. Jesus Christ, my proofreading skills are terrible.
32
@ 21/22 - On a mostly unrelated note, congrats on getting through 1L. Really.
33
@23 and 26 FTW. This is TERRIBLE choice for we progressives!
35
@2

Sixty percent ( 60% ) of the women in the Oklahoma Senate voted for the bill you are whining about.

Are you All Fine with that?......
36
Or an old white guy.
37
"This is TERRIBLE choice for we progressives!"

Thanks for the laugh...didn't you realize Obama would throw the loony left overboard after the election? Enjoy the swim back to Crazy Island while Obama leads from the center.

So who ya gonna vote for in '12, Palin?

LMAO!
38
In Canada our Supreme Court has 4 of 9 women, including the Chief Justice. Seems to me the question is why there are 6 males on the court.
39
She sure is ugly enough to be a lesbian.
40
@38
Because,
in Canada,
your Supreme Court has 4 of 9 women.....
41
39
actually,
when she was born
the nurses diapered her head.....
42
Obama doesn't hate old white men, or at least not only old white men. He also hates Protestants since with Kagan it'll be 6 Catholics & 3 Jews. A lot of guilt on the court.
43
Shut up everybody, Shut up Lutz.

Lets address the elephant in the room. Why is Obama appointing David Mitchell to the SC? Isn't he British?
44
@32: Thank you!
45
Why aren't there any appointments from the West?

We're Americans too.

We have law schools.

We have half the US GDP.

And yet ...
46
@45: We're way too liberal. The east coast hates the 9th Circuit. And what big name scholars do we have? Chemerinsky? I think he's great, but again, probably going to get shot down as "too liberal."

Also we're too far away.
47
@30: Stevens has been adamant that he has remained conservative throughout his tenure while the ground beneath him has shifted to the right.
49
@48: More like hiring a pilot who's never flown a plane, but designed and put the damn thing together. But even that's an imperfect analogy. So anyway:
http://www.eatliver.com/img/2008/3120.jp…
Batman is riding an elephant; this renders your argument invalid. (Well, that and your inability to type semi-coherently.)

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