Kagan in Context: Shafting Progressive Values

[IndianaGreen]

Kagan in Context: Shafting Progressive Values

Monday 10 May 2010

by: Norman Solomon, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

If President Obama has his way, Elena Kagan will replace John Paul Stevens - and the Supreme Court will move rightward. The nomination is very disturbing, especially because it's part of a pattern. The White House is in the grip of conventional centrist wisdom. Grim results stretch from Afghanistan to the Gulf of Mexico to communities across the USA.

"It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills," President Obama said in support of offshore oil drilling, less than three weeks before the April 20 blowout in the Gulf. "They are technologically very advanced."

On numerous policy fronts, such conformity to a centrist baseline has smothered hopes for moving this country in a progressive direction. Now, the president has taken a step that jeopardizes civil liberties and other basic constitutional principles.

"During the course of her Senate confirmation hearings as Solicitor General, Kagan explicitly endorsed the Bush administration's bogus category of 'enemy combatant,' whose implementation has been a war crime in its own right," University of Illinois law Professor Francis Boyle noted last month. "Now, in her current job as U.S. Solicitor General, Kagan is quarterbacking the continuation of the Bush administration's illegal and unconstitutional positions in U.S. federal court litigation around the country, including in the U.S. Supreme Court."

Boyle added: "Kagan has said 'I love the Federalist Society.' This is a right-wing group; almost all of the Bush administration lawyers responsible for its war and torture memos are members of the Federalist Society."

http://www.truthout.org/kagan-context-shafting-progressive-values59364

[MannyGoldstein]

1. We Are Chumps

If I'd wanted another Clinton administration, I'd have voted for a Clinton.

I voted for change; I got more triangulation uber alles.

[DJ13]

6. Thats exactly why I wouldnt vote for Hillary in 08

If I had known there would be near zero difference I would have voted for the real thing.

[dumpdabaggers]

2. Is there any real way of knowing?

Do you think Bush 41 thought Souter would be a liberal vote? Eisenhower stated that the biggest mistake of his life was to put Earl Warren on the Supreme Court. Do you think Gerald Ford knew J.P Stevens would be a liberal?

Once someone is on the court they are there for life. Anyone picked is a crap shoot.

[IndianaGreen]

3. Kagan treats the First Amendment as something to barter

this was pointed out by Jonathan Turley on Keith Olbermann tonight.

:scared:

[jefferson_dem]

4. Turley is an smarmy POS.

I got off his bandwagon this time last year when he was railing about how Sotomayor wasn't qualified. We see how that turned out. Fuck him.

[IndianaGreen]

8. Turley (and John Dean) stand for the Constitution that Obama swore to protect and defend

and has failed to do so.

[scheming daemons]

5. Turley railed against Sotomayor even more forcefully... Turley is worthless

If you're basing your opinions on something Jonathan Turley has said, you're in a very bad place.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

7. As the Solicitor General, isn't she supposed to argue on behalf of the U.S. government

regardless of where the government position stands ideologically?

If so, I would argue that she was simply doing her job.

Someone explain, please...