Kagan Konfirmation

[Robert Sheridan]

On 8/6/2010 11:27 AM, Jon Roland wrote:
> And yes, we are a kind of church. It's doctrine is constitutionalism. 
> But it is a church that has strayed from its roots into a dangerous path.

What dangerous path is that, pray tell?

The Court isn't the one getting us into all these wars; it's someone 
else, someone unburdened by a fine legal mind, who doesn't write legal 
treatises.

The whole point of having nomination hearings is that we don't want a 
pig in a poke.  Souter.  The poor right wing went to all the trouble of 
electing Bush-41 and he gave them Souter because he was inadequately 
vetted for Rightness and turned out to be humane, to their utter 
disappointment.  They resolved not to so err again.  The liberals smoked 
out, i.e. 'Borked' Robert Bork.  In Teddy Kennedy's America, he had no 
place, and vice versa.  It is precisely to avoid installing partisan 
misfits that we go through the nomination exercise and also why those 
with the least discernible track records who succeed in being voted in.  
We're supposed to read these alleged blanks as being one of us based not 
on what they've written or done, but on the assurances given by their 
backers, as best I can tell.

Some of the more interesting ones actually fought for something:  
Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  Some of the others simply 
played the game, and played it well enough to be nominated.  Of course 
ideology is decisive.  FDR wasn't going to appoint the sort of 
shell-backed conservatives who couldn't see his New Deal, and George W. 
Bush wasn't going to appoint the sort of liberal who could.

I could be wrong, but it may be the very tug-of-war between left and 
right, liberal and conservative, that gives us a chance at survival.  
Can you imagine a court of all conservatives?  All liberals?  I'd rather 
have the tug-of-war between them both, not trusting either.

At least this is a path I can see.  What does your path look like?

rs