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United States News Title: Kagan's Humor, Command of Law Deflect Republican Criticism U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, parrying lawmakers’ questions with humor and a command of the law, picked up some qualified support from a leading Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee that is reviewing her nomination. “Your stock really went up with me,” South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham told Kagan when she praised Miguel Estrada, a lawyer whose appeals court nomination by Republican President George W. Bush was blocked by Senate Democrats. Kagan and Estrada were law school classmates. In her first day answering questions before the Senate panel, Kagan spiced up a discussion of constitutional law with quips about personal grooming and religion. She stood her ground when challenged -- rejecting Republican accusations that she ignored the law by restricting military recruitment as dean of Harvard Law School -- while avoiding any gaffes that might jeopardize her nomination. “Kagan’s performance was a vivid reminder that one doesn’t get to be dean of the Harvard Law School by accident,” said Walter Dellinger, a Democrat who served as President Bill Clinton’s top Supreme Court lawyer. She showed “quiet but substantial confidence in her understanding of the law and her ability to discuss her views,” he said. The panel’s top Republican, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, was far more critical. He stopped just short of accusing her of lying about the military recruitment, saying on a CNN interview that she “was not rigorously accurate.” Constitutional Approach Kagan, nominated last month by President Barack Obama, said she would take a flexible approach toward constitutional questions. She said that originalism -- the conservative-backed approach of interpreting the Constitution in accordance with its meaning at the time of adoption -- could answer only some questions about the document’s significance today. “In other cases, the original intent is unlikely to solve the question,” Kagan said. “That might be because the original intent is unknowable or it might be because we live in a world that’s very different from the world in which the framers lived.” Kagan, currently Obama’s chief high court lawyer, described herself as a lifelong Democrat. “My views are generally progressive,” Kagan said. She balked, however, at using that same word to characterize her judicial approach, rejecting a White House lawyer’s characterization of her as a “legal progressive.” “I guess people ought to be allowed to label themselves,” Kagan said. “I don’t know what that label means.” Campaign Finance She said she would respect the court’s decision in January allowing unlimited campaign spending by corporations and unions. That decision, a 5-4 ruling known as Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, rejected arguments Kagan had made in support of federal spending limits. “I want to make a clear distinction between my views as an advocate and any views that I might have as a judge,” Kagan said. “I do think Citizens United is settled law going forward.” She similarly said she would respect two recent Supreme Court decisions, one in 2008 and one this week, interpreting the Constitution’s Second Amendment to protect individual gun rights across the country. “I have absolutely no reason to think that the court’s analysis was incorrect in any way,” she said, referring to the 2008 decision. Clear Stands Kagan, who once said Supreme Court nomination hearings had become “a vapid and hollow charade,” took firm stances on several issues. She said that she supported opening the Supreme Court chamber to cameras and that she opposed the military’s ban on openly gay soldiers. The latter issue arose as part of a dispute over her efforts to block military recruiters from using on-campus facilities at Harvard Law School. Kagan said she was enforcing a campus policy barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. She relented after the Defense Department threatened to invoke a federal law that lets the government withhold federal funding from universities that don’t give military recruiters equal access. The Supreme Court later upheld that law, known as the Solomon Amendment, against a First Amendment challenge. Sessions accused Kagan of treating the military “in a second-class way” and giving the Pentagon “a runaround.” Kagan disputed an assertion by Sessions that she had ignored the law, pointing to legal uncertainty at the time about the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment. “We were never out of compliance with the law,” she said. Cried Once She got help on that issue from Vermont Senator Pat Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Leahy pointed to a newspaper opinion piece lauding Kagan’s support for the military, written by Marine Captain Robert Merrill, who graduated from Harvard Law School while she was dean. The question gave Kagan a chance to show a softer side. “I’ve only cried once during this process, and I cried when I woke up one morning and I read that op-ed from Captain Merrill,” she said. “It meant just an enormous amount to me.” Kagan also showed -- repeatedly -- that she could crack a joke, as when Graham began a line of questioning by asking her where she was on Christmas, the day a man allegedly tried to blow up a commercial airplane headed to Detroit. “Like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant,” Kagan quipped, drawing laughter from senators and audience members alike. Doing Her Hair At another point, she briefly rendered Pennsylvania Democrat Arlen Specter speechless by mentioning a potential downside to Supreme Court cameras. “It means I’d have to get my hair done more often, Senator Specter,” she said. Specter eventually recovered enough to tell her he thought her sense of humor would be an attribute. “We’re looking for someone who can moderate the court, and a little humor would do them a lot of good,” he said. Not everyone was impressed by Kagan. “You do get the Arthur Murray award,” Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said. “You are dancing a bit.” One critic of the Kagan nomination, Curt Levey of the Committee for Justice, said that, while Kagan “danced and evaded on a number of issues,” her performance in some ways was superior to that of Obama’s first nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. Kagan “was a bit more forthright and certainly more entertaining,” Levey said.
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#2. To: Brian S (#0)
The line about eating chinese on Christmas Day was funny. She'll be confirmed by a wide margin. Not because she deserves the job, she's less qualified than Harriet Meyers as anyone can see. But because its swapping one leftwinger on the Court for another. Status quo is maintained.
Care to explain that one?
#4. To: go65 (#3)
Compare both bio's.
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