Ed Whelan Compares Elena Kagan To Prostitute

Ed Whelan, a conservative writer for National Review Online and president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is under fire for using a prostitute metaphor in making the case against Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.

In a post on National Review's website on Friday, Whelan criticized Kagan for allowing military recruiters at Harvard Law School despite her opposition to the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

Whelan wrote:

If Kagan genuinely believed that the Don't Ask, Don't Tell law was "a profound wrong--a moral injustice of the first order," why would she make herself complicit in implementing the grave evil? Yes, of course, it's true, as the article points out, that "barring the recruiters would [have] come with a price." But, as George Bernard Shaw would have said to Kagan for selling out her supposedly deeply held principles, "We've already established what you are, ma'am. Now we're just haggling over the price."

On Sunday, Eric Burns, the president of the progressive watchdog group Media Matters for America, released a statement blasting Whelan. "It is disgusting, yet not surprising, that the conservatives' favorite judicial attack dog would stoop so low as to imply a woman is a prostitute merely because she didn't to allow her personal views to stand in the way of our military's recruiters," Burns said. "Conservatives should stand up to Whelan, demand he apologize, and refuse to parrot his imminent attacks against whoever the president nominates to the bench."

Following Media Matters' statement, Whelan updated his post with the following addition:

I see that some lefty bloggers...have taken, or feigned, offense at my use of the Bernard Shaw quip. Set aside the fact that the broader point of my post is that Kagan surely doesn't believe her own extremist rhetoric (not that she believes it but is willing to sell her principles away). The Bernard Shaw quip is widely used in political discourse...to criticize someone for selling out; it obviously doesn't carry (and in my case certainly wasn't intended to carry) the particular stigma that a narrowly literal understanding would convey.

Media Matters' response: "That's too little, too late."

Comments

[freeus]

10:20 AM on 05/12/2010

This is the same concern that was raised in a discussion about Kagan on democracy now the other day; if money changed her mind, that IS a problem.

[JolieN]

09:59 AM on 05/12/2010

Hmmmm.....sounds like they describing SP who is all about the $$$

[Ospree19]

09:52 AM on 05/12/2010

It's and rogeny....it's Pat...

[Christopher Daley]

07:36 PM on 05/10/2010

I know this is going to get nasty the problem I have is with the sexist name calling. Show some respect. You don't like her views or decisions than go after those. It all turns into nasty ugliness. The job is too important for that.

http://www.csdaley.com/2010/05/he-said-what.html

[BushIsAWarCriminal]

05:51 PM on 05/10/2010

And the Far Right wonders why Progressive Liberals like myself despise them. Perhaps they can speak falsehoods but haven't yet learned to read. The Solicitor General is unfit to argue in front of the now Supremely Silly Court? She's a stumpet? Tea Baggers stoop too low to describe.

[spectre64]

11:15 AM on 05/12/2010

You "despise" the right? Funny. "Hating is what Tea Baggers do best." Those were your words. I suppose hating is just fine so long as you're the one doing all of the hating. Typical.

[Puller58]

05:40 PM on 05/10/2010

This is mild compared what will likely follow.

[Tim303]

05:31 PM on 05/10/2010

Clucker

[bcarb]

05:29 PM on 05/10/2010

The Radical Right, which professes to respect women and family, sure does hate it when a smart woman steps up to the plate.

[BushIsAWarCriminal]

05:52 PM on 05/10/2010

Hating is what Tea Baggers do best.

[QuietLightTraveler]

04:57 PM on 05/10/2010

If Obama picked her, she is a compromise. It's funny how Obama can dampen the enthusiasm of most Democrats. If I ever vote again, I will do so as an independent. Prostitute ? All these people are prostitutes. From what I have seen, all these lawyers, politicians and judges are Liars and Prostitutes. That is their stock and trade. So far they have done an excellent job screwing up this country. Obama ? - He is the deliverance that doesn't deliver.

[bcarb]

05:24 PM on 05/10/2010

The policies of Pres Bush didn't send you to vote the Independent party, but Pres O does???

[BushIsAWarCriminal]

05:52 PM on 05/10/2010

Right on the money.

[BushIsAWarCriminal]

05:53 PM on 05/10/2010

Then don't vote. Don't write. Don't spew. Don't do anything.

[vizzon]

02:18 PM on 05/10/2010

and so it begans!!!!!!-predictable

[AJ P III]

02:02 PM on 05/10/2010

Starting at square one it is easy to understand Whelan's use and defense of the "Shaw quip" as a revealing vestige of the patriarchal status quo:
"..the fear that the admission of women would destroy the adversarial system and the school itself was "a judgment hardly proved, a prediction hardly different from other ‘self-fulfilling prophecies' . . . once routinely used to deny rights or opportunities." Ginsburg offered some telling examples: an 1876 state court that ruled women could be prevented from being lawyers in order to "grade up" the profession; medical faculties that barred women from their schools for fear of such evils as women and men jointly displaying "the secrets of the reproduction system"; and police resistance to women on the force because their presence would "undermine male solidarity," deprive the men of "adequate assistance," and "lead to sexual misconduct." She pointed out how successfully women had performed once the federal military academies and services were opened to them. In short, she concluded, Virginia had "‘fallen far short of establishing the "exceedingly persuasive justification"'. . . that must be the solid base for any gender-defined classification."

From: http://www.supremecourthistory.org/learning/supremecourthistory_learning_womens5.htm

[LDF]

01:46 PM on 05/10/2010

As usual, the wingnuts believe they can do no wrong.

[EducatedWoman]

01:37 PM on 05/10/2010

Whelan would not have said that if the nominee were a man. Or if he himself were ethical.

I take it that the "Ethics and Public Policy Center" over which he presides is some kind of Orwellian-named front.

[BushIsAWarCriminal]

05:53 PM on 05/10/2010

He's just another right wing fraud.

[InnocentBystander]

01:24 PM on 05/10/2010

Well, if there's something political conservatives/Republicans are experts on, it's the subject of prostitution. Literally and figuratively.

[treadway123]

01:29 PM on 05/10/2010

Aimed at a women, was written against a woman, an for a woman only segment!

[JoeMentia]

01:36 PM on 05/10/2010

Shhhhhhhh! They are now officially referred to as "Luggage Carriers" in Religious Right circles

[Vincent Truman]

01:23 PM on 05/10/2010

While this kind of rhetoric might be charming or even edgy within the confines of a stuffy college dorm, it is simply inappropriate in this context.