Supreme Debate: Kagan’s Nomination Fires Up Right

As far as New Yorkers are concerned, President Obama is fair and balanced. With the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor–a die-hard Yankees’ fan– and now the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan–an ardent Mets’ fan–the President’s got all his Supreme Court bases covered. But conservatives are already crying foul.

From the right, we’re hearing the expected broad brush objections including labeling Kagan a “radical” and “inexperienced.” I even saw a few slams calling Kagan “Obama’s Harriet Meirs.” That one is laughable, as Meirs, Bush’s cronyism pick for the high court had neither Kagan’s academic background nor her impressive resume.

On Bill Bennett’s Monday morning radio show both the conservative host and Sen. John Kyl, a Republican who sits on the Judiciary Committee, offered early soft balls, acknowledging Obama’s choice was a wise one, noting Kagan may be a liberal, but not “over the top.” Still, Kyl, who voted for Kagan’s Solicitor General appointment, said his vote is not guaranteed.

As the day wore on, the pitches gained velocity. Texas Sen. John Cornyn said Kagan’s nomination is surprising “because she lacks judicial experience. Most Americans believe judicial experience is a necessary credential for a Supreme Court Justice.” Hop into your time machine, Senator, and revisit your pro-Meirs comments in 2005. In defense of Bush’s short-lived candidate, Cornyn lauded Meirs as offering , “common sense that would be very beneficial,” countering the other Justices who “have been federal judges, circuit court judges or academicians ”

Kagan, of course, has the academic chops. When she served as Dean of Harvard Law School she invited conservatives to join the faculty, raising some concern among liberals that she may, in fact, be a right-leaning centrist who could actually move the Supreme Court to the right.

Rush Limbaugh , who was busy branding Kagan a “lightweight” and a “radical” on his syndicated radio show Monday, called the assertion “a crock.” He warned his ditto heads, ” If the regime really thought she was open-minded, really thought she was sympathetic to conservatives and their point of view, they would never have let her be nominated.

Embattled GOP Chair Michael Steele got into the bashing act today, too, issuing a press release that promptly criticized Kagan over a Law Review article she wrote as an homage to Justice Thurgood Marshall shortly after his death in 1993. In it, Kagan’s quotes from Marshall’s 1987 speech denouncing parts of The Constitution as “defective” and states the Supreme Court’s primary mission is to “show a special solicitude for the despised and disadvantaged.”

Marshall, was of course, referring to slavery, and the Founding Fathers original assertions that neither blacks nor women were full-fledged citizens and as such were not accorded certain rights like property ownership, voting and oh, yeah, freedom. Marshall talked about amendments and the Civil War, something Steele and his cohorts continue to eschew .

RNC spokesman Doug Heye said, “In that same Law Review article, Kagan endorses the view that the Court’s primary role is to show ‘special solicitude’ for people a judge has empathy for. Liberals would much rather talk about whose view she’s endorsing rather than the substance of that view. That they would do so is unsurprising because her view of the Court’s primary mission is at odds with the majority of Americans.”

Heye, of course, conveniently played fast and loose with Kagan’s comments. She didn’t talk about people with whom a judge shares random “empathy, ” but to people who are “despised and disadvantaged.” That sounds a lot like protecting the minority to me. That, by the way, is a pretty mainstream interpretation of the Supreme Court’s mission, and one, I think most Americans support.

But when you add a flimsy “paper trail” to her solid ( if pretty centrist) record, you have to expect the right to take many aimless swings at Kagan. Just don’t expect them to hit any out of the park.

She’ll likely get through the nomination process and wear the big robe. But not before a rough nine innings.

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