Kagan's Conservative Friends Support Nomination

(AP)  Conservative lawyers and academics are voicing support for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, praise that could soften criticism from the right and provide cover for any Republican senators inclined to vote for her nomination.

The essence of their take on Kagan, the former Harvard Law School dean who now serves as solicitor general, is that she clearly has the smarts to be a justice and has shown an ability to work with all sides on thorny issues.

CBSNews.com Special Report: Elena Kagan

"She has had a remarkable and truly unusual record of reaching out across ideological divides," said Michael McConnell, a former federal appeals court judge who was nominated by President George W. Bush.

Longtime Kagan friend Miguel Estrada, whose appeals court nomination by Mr. Bush was blocked by Senate Democrats, said, "She's clearly qualified for the court and should be confirmed. Obviously, she's a left-of-center academic who never would have been picked by a Republican. But no one can doubt her intellectual accomplishments."

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday, Estrada said, "If such a person, who has demonstrated great intellect, high accomplishments and an upright life is not easily confirmable, I fear we will have reached a point where no capable person will readily accept a nomination for judicial service."

(Note: Senate Judiciary Committee members Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., are scheduled to appear on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday)

Former special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, who ran the investigation that led to President Clinton's impeachment, said charges by some conservatives that Kagan holds extreme views are off-base.

"That's politics, and unfortunately confirmation politics have been very ugly, with a few happy interludes, ever since the nomination of Judge Robert Bork," Starr said on MSNBC.

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Conservative interest groups and some senators have raised questions about Kagan's lack of judicial experience and suggested that she might be a "rubber stamp" for President Obama on the high court. They also have seized on her opposition to military recruiters at Harvard over the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gay soldiers. The conservative critics argue that she would be a liberal, activist justice.

Carrie Severino, chief counsel to the Judicial Crisis Network, said endorsements by prominent conservatives do nothing to answer the questions about Kagan.

"I don't think that really changes our analysis," Severino said. "We're very interested in finding out what kind of a justice she would be. As of right now, what we see looks very troubling."

Severino's group released a video Friday blasting Kagan for barring military recruiters over "don't ask, don't tell." GOP senators have said the decision casts doubt on Kagan's fitness for the bench.

Thomas Goldstein, a Supreme Court lawyer who writes about the court and nominations for Scotusblog.com, said the support on the right is potentially useful to Kagan.

"When conservative icons strongly endorse Kagan, that knocks the legs out from under the claim that she's either unqualified or a liberal activist. Those arguments end up looking like pure politics," Goldstein said. "The endorsements also give critical cover to moderate Republicans who want to vote for her but worry about criticism from the right."

So far no Republican senator has announced support for Kagan, who received seven GOP votes when she was confirmed as solicitor general last year.

McConnell, who teaches law at Stanford University, agreed with Severino that Kagan's stand on military recruiters was a "dreadful decision." But he said that Harvard was like many other major law schools at that time in seeking to bar military recruiters over discrimination against gays. He said the episode was "not a serious black eye."

He also said that Kagan will be a safe liberal vote in most cases that divide on ideological grounds.

Yet, he said, "As I chat with other center-right law professors, she's got overwhelming affection and support."

He attributed some of that support to Kagan's openness to arguments across the political spectrum.

"She's a bit unusual in this respect, particularly at this juncture when not just the Supreme Court but the country basically is divided into two camps that often cannot speak to each other," McConnell said. Kagan, who has known McConnell since their days as law professors at the University of Chicago in the early 1990s, wrote a letter of support for McConnell in 2002 urging Senate Democrats to confirm him.

She and Estrada have been friends since they sat next to each other in several law school classes 25 years ago. And Starr held the same job as Kagan, when he was President George H.W. Bush's solicitor general.

[marcm1]

What to do when your nominee to the Supreme Court has no experience on the bench, filed an amicus brief that got blown out of the water, worked a skimpy two years in the private sector, treated members of the military as second-class citizens, and penned only a limited number of ?scholarly? articles?

Naturally, you talk about all the free tampons she distributed while at Harvard. If only I were kidding. It turns out that Kagan?s r?sum? is so threadbare that Team Obama is floating a myriad of pathetic talking points to pad its candidate?s ?qualifications.?

See for yourself.


1. The baller. Not only are we told that she?s ?ambitious, restless, [and] intellectually acute,? but, as Politico noted, she ?even shares the president?s love of a good, grinding pick-up basketball game.? Say what? She enjoys a ?grinding pick-up basketball game?? Well now, that settles it then. Bust out the basketball trunks, throw on a jersey, and move yourself straight to the front of the line for a lifetime position on the most powerful court in the world! What could go wrong? As an aside, can you even imagine Kagan ?grinding? on the court?
2. She?s one of us. From the mouth of Barack, a Kagan confirmation would be ?more reflective of us as a people than ever before.? And if by ?reflective,? the president means that most Americans go from Princeton to Oxford to Harvard to the University of Chicago? then back to Harvard, well yes, Kagan?s mug should replace Lincoln?s on the $5 bill because she?s so ?reflective? of America.

3. Feminine products. At Harvard, Kagan gained popularity by offering ?free coffee outside classrooms and free tampons in the women?s restrooms.? Surely, these were exactly the type of qualities Thomas Jefferson sought when picking a justice.

4. The tokens. Kagan herself tells us that she strove to ?bring people together,? specifically by hiring conservative professors. Obama touts this as ?openness to a broad array of viewpoints.? Um, so let?s get this one straight. As the dean of one of the nation?s most prominent law schools, she took steps to introduce her students to different opinions and thus fulfill the mission of a university? The left is asking us to pat her on the back for doing her job? Okay, fine. Let?s buy her a meat-lovers pizza and call it even. Besides, out of the 43 hires she authorized, only 3 were conservative. Big deal.

5. Born in the U.S.A. ?Elena is the granddaughter of immigrants,? Obama boasted of his pick, which is to say that Kagan?s parents? parents immigrated to this country. And that makes her special again how?

6. Triple Axel. Kagan, we?re told, improved ?student life? at Harvard with a ?revamped student center, an upgraded gym and an ice-skating rink? that also ?doubled as a volleyball court.? Did I miss the memo, or is the Supreme Court now the new training grounds for the 2012 Olympics?

7. Justice Pavarotti. Pete Williams of NBC News recently affirmed Kagan as an ?accomplished poker player [and] opera lover,? which, as we know, are grounds for a swift confirmation, no?

8. Toilet preference. Obama describes Kagan as a "trailblazing leader" for being the first female solicitor general and the first female dean of Harvard?s law school, as if we're supposed to judge her fidelity to the Constitution because she happens to use the ladies room.

9. Good news: Kagan ain?t deaf. Television legal analyst Lis Wiehl gushed that the Supreme Court nominee ran Harvard Law with ?grace? and is an ?avid listener.?

10. Kagan actually ?welcomed the military to campus.? So says White House shill Valerie Jarrett, even though Kagan authored a memo bragging that she ?reinstated? the school's ban on the military in the Spring of 2005, but reluctantly lifted the ban in the Fall of that same year, after the Department of Defense threatened to ?withhold all possible funds if the Law School continued to bar the military? from Harvard.

Now that we have those gems out of the way, enjoy the rest of your day thinking about Elena Kagan in her booty basketball shorts, "grinding" on the court ;).

[ConstitutionGal912]

Hmmm. When one's mentors are the likes of Thurgood Marshall and Cass Sunstein (avowed Socialists) AND you write about how great Socialism is ...I wonder how decisions will be made. Will they be based on the US Constitution or Global-World case law?

[babooph]

Little G.W.Bush had J.Christ as his hero-that is about as socialist as one can get[though he did sell his hero out IN SPADES...]

[babooph]

Just because she is a conservative,does not have her being ANYTHING like the stupid fake conservatives[in name only] in the modern republican party-she should be a fine justice...

[jschmidt27]

Sen Leahy D-VT, thought Justice Thomas didn't have enough experience. What will he say about Kagan? So we have the most inexperienced Presdient in 60 years proposing a Justice who's never been a judge which is the first time in 40 years. So is that a problem in this litigious society where everyone sues everyone?

[theywerestrongandgood]

100% of our Supreme Court justices will be Harvard or Yale educated. 100% of our Supreme Court justices will be from non-Protestant religions: Catholicism and Judaism. For good or bad, it is interesting to note that we have little diversity on the Supreme Court.

[erichsh]

Uh oh - when the MSM tries to sell us Kagan with an article like this claiming that Kagan has "conservative support", buyer beware! The true test of Kagan's purported conservative side is the level of liberal opposition. To the extent that liberals start screaming and howling about Kagan, I'll be more inclined to believe it. But since all they're doing here is throwing childish insults at Republicans as usual, I'll take this article with a grain of salt.

[rightbehind]

She's too conservative.

[RobAla]

Washington Post: April 18. 2010:
"Her stance put Kagan squarely in sync with professors at Harvard and other law schools -- and wholly out of sync with the Supreme Court, which later ruled unanimously that the schools were wrong. Four years after that ruling, Kagan, now the U.S. solicitor general, is a leading candidate to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Conservatives have signaled that if President Obama nominates her, her stance on this issue -- like perhaps no other in her career -- dangles as ripe fruit that opponents would grab to thwart her confirmation."

Kagan disallowed the military recruiters on the campus of Harvard, and the situation went before the Supreme Court. The court rules 8-0 that her stand was unlawful. She was totally out of step with the entire Supreme Court.

Most of the confirmed justices, which have no judicial experience, have written tons of legal papers indicating a firm and rich legal mind. She has published almost nothing. She is simply a mouth piece for the President's extremist views and policies. She has a history of political activism, and this not something we want in a justice who is to rule solely on the law. I have yet to understand what makes this person a good candidate to be a Supreme Court justice.

[larrryshrine]

William Rehnquist, that icon of the conservative right, Louis Brandeis, and nearly 40 other justices had no judicial experience before joining the court. This court is like no other and demands scholarship above all else. Kagan will be approved. She is a moderate with significant conservative endorsements.

[stormerF3]

I was under the impression when you hire someone to do a job you want the best for the money you have to spend? Why would you hire a scluptor to do your plastic surgery? Or a Stewartess to fly a plane? Next time you want some painting done hire a Plumber,he can use a brush and a roller and knows that paint covers up Crapola,but would you be happy with the Job? If we are Hiring a Judge,why the Hell don't we hire a Judge?

[doctor_know]

read your history book....