Cenk Uygur: The problem with Elena Kagan is Barack Obama

The Problem With Elena Kagan Is Barack Obama

by Cenk Uygur

Mon May 10, 2010 at 02:19:13 PM PDT

Bush picked arguably the two most conservative judges in the country to fill his Supreme Court vacancies. He easily shoved it down the throat of the Democrats. What has been Obama's response - let me pick a centrist!

He can't help himself. He loves establishment players. Look at nearly all of his appointments. Rahm Emanuel, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke. These are the pillars of the establishment. What kind of change is this? He nominated for the head of the Fed the same exact guy who helped destroy our economy for George W. Bush. He can't help himself. He is a politician through and through, and he desperately wants the approval of those around him. And those around him now are the power players in Washington.

So, we get the blank slate of Elena Kagan, with almost no record to speak of, except her affinity for executive power. Joy. Could she turn into a lion of progressivism? Sure. But why do we have to hope against hope on that? Why can't we get a progressive Justice if we elected a progressive president? Because the ugly truth is that we didn't elect a progressive president.

Obama (and Rahm Emanuel) are going to love it if progressives attack Kagan. They will brandish that as a signal that they are soooo centrist. They will crow to their Washington reporter friends that they are being attacked from the left and brag about how much credibility that gives them. And when they win this nomination (non)fight, they will declare victory again, as if they accomplished some major objective. No one loves beating up progressives and winning easy battles in DC more than this administration.

My guess is that at some future date this article will be misinterpreted to say that I argued against Elena Kagan. Except for executive power (where I am as progressive as anyone in the country), I am a judicial moderate. Kagan might wind up being exactly my kind of justice. And so far, Sonia Sotomayor has been great - and Obama picked her (which some will argue is evidence to "trust" him again). My point isn't that Kagan is terrible or can't do the job. My point isn't that Obama secretly wants to pick a conservative (or a progressive, as his defenders would claim). My point is that Obama has no intention of burning up political capital (according to his perception) by publicly standing up and fighting for for his own so-called side and will defer to the center or right-wing given any opportunity to do so. And this is another example of that.

Elena Kagan - safe, no record, never challenged power in any meaningful way, never stood up for progressive ideology, beloved by the establishment in Washington - the perfect Obama candidate. I'm tired of it. The ball is down against our own goal line and the guy thinks he just scored a touchdown.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/10/865283/-The-Problem-With-Elena-Kagan-Is-Barack-Obama

Good piece - k&r

The only Dem in the running that was really progressive was literally cut out of the picture.

When it needs to be a bold, visionary force.

elitist, out of touch with working class, unprincipled, selling everything that isn't nailed down to foreign entities.

I can't defend against these charges, they have become true. Liberals in America have ZERO representation. We are hated by democrats and republicans even though we are in no way responsible for neo-con/neo-lib disasters every 6 months or so.

We get blamed because the right wing media has made us safe to hate. For what? Nothing.

We need a third party.

disgusting beyond belief

Apparently, only former football players understand the importance of not handing over the ball to the other side just before you would have garnered the fourth down.

In fact, this guy doesn't even make it to the first down.

But he sure loves to throw himself a victory party! And he loves thinking that bowing to the Republican concessions will have them loving him at some point in time.

Let's see how that works out.

By John Byrne, Raw Story
Posted on May 11, 2010, Printed on May 11, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/146826/

Elena Kagan, President Barack Obama's latest nominee to the Supreme Court, helped protect the Saudi royal family from lawsuits that sought to hold al Qaeda financiers responsible in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The suits were filed by thousands family members and others affected by the Sept. 11 attacks. In court papers, they provided evidence that members of the Saudi royal family had channeled millions to al Qaeda prior to the bombings, often in contravention of direct guidance from the United States.

But Kagan, acting as President Obama's Solicitor General, argued that the case should not be heard even if evidence proved that the Saudis helped underwrite al Qaeda, because it would interfere with US foreign policy with the oil-rich nation. She posited “that the princes are immune from petitioners’ claims” because of “the potentially significant foreign relations consequences of subjecting another sovereign state to suit.”

In an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer published Tuesday, the mother of a man who was killed on United Flight 93 in Pennsylvania said he didn't know why Kagan argued that the case not even be heard. By keeping the case off the dockets, the Saudis were spared scrutiny of their finances.

"We had hoped she would be with us so that we could have our day in court," Beverly Burnett said.

“I find this reprehensible,” said Kristen Breitweiser, another family member whose husband was killed in the 9/11 attacks, said at the time. “One would have hoped that the Obama administration would have taken a different stance than the Bush administration, and you wonder what message this sends to victims of terrorism around the world.”

The Obama Administration's decision to intervene in the Saudi-al Qaeda case so irritated two Republican senators that they introduced legislation aiming to ensure that Americans have the ability to sue foreign governments.

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) offered a proposal to amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which Kagan cited as one reason the Saudi case should not be heard. Both senators said that US citizens should be able to sue foreign governments if they are found to be supporting terrorist activity.

Specter, who has since become a Democrat, was unusually blunt.

"She wants to coddle the Saudis," he said.


John Byrne is editor of Raw Story.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/146826/kagan_helped_shield_saudi_royal_family_from_9_11_lawsuits

Kagan in '97 urged Clinton to ban late abortions

In a May 13, 1997, memo from the White House domestic policy office, Kagan and her boss, Bruce Reed, told Clinton that abortion rights groups opposed Daschle's compromise. But they urged the president to support it, saying he otherwise risked seeing a Republican-led Congress override his veto on the stricter bill.

Clinton generally supported banning late-term abortions but insisted there be an exception when the mother's health was at risk.

Because Kagan spent little time in court and never sat as a judge, she does not have the typical long history of court opinions and legal briefs. That has made it difficult to assess her legal acumen or ideology. President Barack Obama announced Kagan's nomination to the high court on Monday.

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said "judges confront issues differently than staff attorneys for an administration." He noted Chief Justice John Roberts made a similar point during his nomination when he was questioned about positions he took as an attorney in the Reagan administration's Justice Department.

Indeed, the memo is more of a political calculation than a legal brief, but Kagan and Reed urged Clinton to support the compromise despite noting that the Justice Department believed the proposal was unconstitutional.

"We recommend that you endorse the Daschle amendment in order to sustain your credibility on HR 1122 and prevent Congress from overriding your veto," they wrote.

The memo noted that another White House adviser, Rahm Emmanuel, also supported the idea. Emmanuel is now Obama's chief of staff.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100511/ap_on_re_us/us_kagan_abortion

anticipated. She is not qualified for the job she needs to fill in these desperate times when Obama might not make it through the 2012 election but we would have to live with a very compromised pick along with Bush's appointments for decades.