For everybody who is convinced that the Kagan pick is a disaster...

[SoxFan]

Let's hop in the Wayback Machine and go to 1990.

George H.W> Bush nominated David Souter to the Supreme Court.

Souter had served as legal counsel to NH Gov. meldrim Thomson, a lunatic fringe, proto-teabagger best known for stunts like praising apartheid and lowering flags to half staff to mourn the Panama Canal Treaty.

Thomson also appointed Souter to his first judicial position, as a trial judge on the NH Superior Court bench. Souter was appointed to the state supreme court by another brash conservative, John H. Sununu.

Bush called the nomination of Souter a "homerun for conservatism".

NOW vehemently fought his confirmation. His nomination drew nay votes from Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Bill Bradley, and Barbara Mikulski, among others.

Souter turned out to be one of the most thoughtful and progressive Justices the Court has seen in recent decades.

Let's take a deep breath and calm down!

http://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e201156e43dce7970c-800wi

[YOY]

1. Disaster? No. Kind of a lukewarm nominee? Yes.

Tepidity is the new extreme...

Meh...I'll take her. Just don't expect anyone to overturn corporate citizenship any time soon.

[Jennicut]

4. Anytime soon? How about when Scalia or Kennedy retire? Nothing will change until then.

And Ginsburg is next in line with her health issues. The court will not go right until the balance is changed. Kagan does not change the balance at all.

[YOY]

5. Exactly what I implied...or wanted to.

n/t

[KansasVoter]

2. So you are saying Kagan could backfire on us also!! LOL...I feel much better!

[WeDidIt]

3. The fear is, Kagan will be to the left what Souter was to the right

I think those fears are unfounded, but there you go.

[Jennicut]

8. The thing with Souter is that Warren Rudman, a liberal Reoublican from NH, sold Bush on him.

"An opinion article by The Wall Street Journal some ten years after the Souter nomination called Souter a "liberal jurist" and said that Rudman took "pride in recounting how he sold Mr. Souter to gullible White House Chief of Staff John Sununu as a confirmable conservative. Then they both sold the judge to President Bush, who wanted above all else to avoid a confirmation battle." Rudman wrote in his memoir that he had "suspected all along" that Souter would not "overturn activist liberal precedents." Sununu later said that he had "a lot of disappointment" about Souter's positions on the court and would have preferred him to be more similar to Justice Antonin Scalia."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Souter

Souter was never a real conservative. At all. Bush was afraid of a Bork-type with a paper trail and Souter was not controversial. Bush got suckered in by a liberal Repub. Teddy Kennedy and John Kerry voted against him because he had friendships with other conservative politicians in New Hampshire. No one except Rudman knew that Souter was really a liberal Repub type (of which there are no more existing in the Republican party).

[Jersey Devil]

6. Since Kagan has never been a judge it is a crap shoot

My observation as a lawyer is that most people who are not in the law profession generally have a very difficult time understanding that when a lawyer argues a case for a client before a court he/she acts as an advocate and that the arguments and views presented to the court are not necessarily those of the lawyer arguing the case.

So when the Solicitor General of the US (Kagan) argues on behalf of the Administration to uphold a law it may very well be that she totally disagrees with the law she is arguing for and as a judge may rule against the very argument she is advocating.

So, in my humble opinion, when you nominate someone to the court who has no judicial track record you can only guess what their real beliefs are because as a lawyer either for a private client or the government her past arguments were made strictly as an advocate.

[HughMoran]

9. I'd like to have been a fly on the wall during her private interviews with O

Probably could have gleaned some critical insight there...

[HughMoran]

7. ...and of course Stevens was a Republican appointed by Ford

:shrug:

I think SC judges tend to go left more than right once hitting the bench, but anything is possible.

[TheKentuckian]

10. We might get lucky isn't a strong case. It's about the same caliber as trust Obama

or she might be a lesbian (well not that lame since there are fair chunk of gay conservatives but close).

[Kahuna]

11. What kills me is that a lot of the same ones opposed to Kagan..had no problem..

throwing the 2000 election to bush, allowing him to select two of the most heinous justices in recent memory. I hate to bring this up again.. Okay. I really don't hate it. I just need to remind from time to time that the selection of justices is one of the most important reasons to vote.