Huffington Post has an article outlining how Kagan's resume contrasts with Rehnquist's.

Seriously, I can understand why it might be advantageous for a nominee to be a US Court of Appeals judge, but if you're going to say that Kagan's unqualified because of her lack of judicial experience, you have to say the same thing about Rehnquist and Lewis Powell.

this bit kicks ass, makes a point that I've wondered about for a while, whether anyone else has noticed/been sick of this.

Republicans, conservatives are not very creative people. Under Obama they are just copycatting all of the complaints "the left" was making about Bush. Which tells me that they WERE listening to us those 8 dreadful years, just not the way we wanted them to hear us out. With a few bizarre exceptions, like the birther thing (have YOU held Bush's original birth certificate in your bare hands?), and the "oh shit Obama's got 30 czars" thing.

For the small minority of Sloggers who are baseball junkies and SCOTUS fans, Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com has a great post on VORJ (Value over Replacement Justice, it comes from a baseball stat called VORP, with P being Player).

He compares Kagan with Wood, with Kagan coming out slightly better due to being younger, but if you factor in a discount factor caring more about what happens now than in 30-40 years, Wood is better for the Democratic party.

Silver explains it better than me- if you like stats and numbers give it a read.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/05/v…

if you're going to say that Kagan's unqualified because of her lack of judicial experience, you have to say the same thing about Rehnquist and Lewis Powell.

And the other 38 Supreme Court judges who had no judicial experience before sitting on the SC.

8

The Miers comparison brings up another point for me: how much more skillful and engaged the hateful Bush team was at the administrative side, in pursuing and winning appointments, not just for SCOTUS but all kinds of other judicial and legal positions. Bush's folks knew how to nominate, push, replace duds a la Miers...and made it a priority to get the positions filled as well and quickly as possible.

Obama's team is performing extremely poorly on this front, leaving unfilled dozens of positions, which signals the kind of vulnerability and dawdliness and disengagement that must cheer Repubs no end now that a high-profile nomination's finally here. Even with no hope of winning, they know every stupid plot to drag it out will further sour Obama's folks on those other appointments.

Scott Horton's coverage on all that at his Harper's No Comment blog has been a frickin' godsend. I find his take on the Kagan nomination the best thing I've read so far:

http://harpers.org/archive/2010/05/hbc-9…

@9,

I honestly haven't been following that aspect of the Obama administration, but could part of it be that they actually want qualified people? It's easy to fill up the bureaucracy fast when you're looking for fuckwits like "Heckuva Job Brownie."

keshmeshi, the best legal minds in the country are ready to serve Obama, but he's not asking many of them to step up. Even when he does ask, as he did the fabulous Dawn Johnsen, his nominee to head the Office of Legal Counsel and supposedly reverse some of the Bush torture-justifying practices, he leaves twisting in the wind once Repubs start hammering. She withdrew once the writing on the wall was clear - Obama's people would not defend her. Again, it signals the Repubs that the President is not that interested in filling the vacancies, that he thinks it's not important, much less crucial. Many of them - especially those who gloated over Bush's ability to push the Justice Department into being an arm of the xenophobic Christian right - know how difficult it will be to undo the Bush years, and know that every week that passes without Obama putting people in place is another week the Bush era gets to live on in our system of justice.

@ 7 - Oh, of course. I just use those two examples because they're the most recent, and because Rehnquist's name still has a lot of sway in conservative circles.

It was fair to refer to Roberts' short record, so it's fair to refer to Kagan's lack of record. Frankly, I'm glad to see the Daily Show bring this up. We'd all be better off if the media adopted a single standard.