The Sphinx: Why the inscrutable Elena Kagan makes everyone nervous

[usregimechange]

Now that Elena Kagan is officially the White House's Supreme Court nominee, pundits have launched themselves into their CSI-worthy project of sorting through tiny filaments of evidence for her true ideological views. With no judicial record to pore over, and some of the wonkiest law-review articles ever penned to her credit, Kagan has mastered the fine art of nearly perfect ideological inscrutability. Even Jeffrey Toobin, her law school study partner, has virtually no idea what she really believes. That only makes us more determined to sift through the dry-cleaning slips and the Post-it notes to try to guess at who the real Elena Kagan might be...

So we've begun another round in the judicial confirmation game of "my trace DNA evidence is better than yours." A letter Kagan co-authored in 2005 condemning a court-stripping proposal for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay will hearten the left. Her statement at her 2009 confirmation hearing that the president could detain enemy combatants without trial will make liberals very nervous. Kagan's refusal to find a right to same sex-marriage in the Constitution may provide some small comfort to conservatives. But the fact that she was strongly and vocally opposed to military recruitment at Harvard Law School until the courts forced her to rescind her policy suggests a willingness to fight for liberal causes. We will debate the ambiguous evidence of Kagan's views on executive power for weeks without knowing much of anything...

We will hear a good many testimonials in the coming weeks that Kagan has the heart of a progressive lion and the political skills of a diplomat. What remains to be seen is whether she will put the former to service in the interest of the latter—or vice versa.

http://www.slate.com/id/2253496/

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. Her slate is not that blank

"Her statement at her 2009 confirmation hearing that the president could detain enemy combatants without trial will make liberals very nervous. "

If her stance is that the President has the authority to "indefinitely" detain American citizens, I do not support her. If she believes that the President has the authority to kill American citizens with no judicial review or guidelines, I do not support her.

Lastly, is this what America has come to? Are future Administrations going to nominate only those that have no record? Will Americans have to wait until it is too late every time from here on out to see whether the nominee reflects the values and views of the party that elected the President?