The Kagan Question

How much do the president's supporters really know about the kind of justice Elena Kagan would be? Glenn Greenwald argued in our recent Bloggingheads dialogue: not very much.

How much do the president's supporters really know about the kind of justice Elena Kagan would be?

Glenn Greenwald argued in our recent Bloggingheads dialogue: not very much. Kagan has not accumulated the type of record that reveals a judicial philosophy. Circumspect, even guarded, in her writing, she is (Greenwald said) a liberal stealth candidate in the manner of - ouch! - Harriet Miers. Liberals are being asked to follow their president on faith.

Conservatives by contrast will assume that she's a huge leftie. The president knows what he is doing, and if Kagan has concealed her innermost views, that from Obama's point of view is a feature, not a bug.

So we should have some lively hearings. Here's hoping we've moved to a post-affirmative action era for women judges, and that the senators (Democrats too) ask actual questions, rather than smiley congratulatory speeches for the record.