Obama's Supreme Court Nominee Unsurprisingly Bland But Fur Will Fly
Word is that President Obama will nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. It's a choice that will make neither conservatives nor liberals particularly happy but she may just be sufficiently bland and academically qualified to run the confirmation gamut with ease.
Kagan, like Obama and Stevens, is a product of the University of Chicago Law School. She's also a former dean of the Harvard Law School. Both her academic and her clerking credentials are brilliant. But she has no judicial experience, has only argued a handful of cases before the Supreme Court and is sure to draw the fire of the Right because of her stance on the subject of gays in the military, a wedge GOP issue.
For its part, the Left will stew and grouse about her stance in favor of several key Obama policies that are effective continuations of his predecessor's practices, as well as her track record of middle-of-the-road views on Constitutional issues seen by liberals as litmus tests.
Although she was a ranking legal officer during the Clinton years, her view of the "unitary presidency" is somewhat jaundiced (she thought Clinton more guilty of attempting to extend executive power than Reagan).
Apart from her complete lack of practice as a judge -- a fairly infrequent occurrence at the top court -- she is eminently qualified as a legal scholar and she's largely unburdened by any definitive public stands on most of the controversial issues of the day.
