I have no idea what kind of Justice Elena Kagan is going to be, and almost no one else does either. She might be a terrific progressive or she might move the Court to the right, as some fear. My problem with her isn't her stated positions, as she doesn't have very many.
My problem with her is my problem with Obama. Cheney and Bush moved the ball 80 yards down-field, whether that was on executive power, warrantless wiretapping, pre-emptive wars or just about any other issue you can think of. And Obama's bold and brilliant response is to move the ball 10 yards in the opposite direction. Not good enough. Not remotely good enough.
His every action drips of conciliation, compromise, gradualism and incrementalism. The conservatives take miles of ideologically territory and convert it into the status quo. Then Obama brags about converting inches back. This isn't change we can believe in. This is pocket change.
So, when conservatives yelled at him about trying Gitmo detainees in civilian courts, his instinct was to back down. When they yelled at him for giving detainees Miranda rights, he is now on the verge of backing down. When they yelled at him about foreign wars, he escalated them. When they yelled at him about the $50 billion "bailout" fund in the financial reform bill, he asked to take it out. When they yelled at him about offshore oil drilling, he gave them more. How did that turn out?
Did you know that after Joe Wilson yelled out "You lie!" on the issue of how immigrants would be treated in the healthcare bill, they quietly gave into him and changed that provision? Is there anything that this guy can't get bullied on? Well, of course, there is. Everything from the left.
So, that brings us to Elena Kagan. 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.
He is never going to throw the ball down the field. If you like two yard pick-ups by a running-back going straight up the middle, you'll love Obama. It's the Eddie George presidency. What he doesn't seem to get is that the other side is eventually going to get the ball back and then it won't seem like a major accomplishment that we went from our own two-yard line to our own twelve-yard line. It'll be viewed as a tremendous disappointment.
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Diana Butler Bass: Elena Kagan and a Lament for American Protestantism
Elena Kagan will be a fine and fair justice. President Obama has made a thoughtful, considered choice. But, on this day, I am a little sad. Missing from the bench will be someone who empathizes with the Protestant worldview in a visceral way.
No Republican, not 30 years ago, would even bring up Health Care reform. And certainly not Wall Street reform. Probably not cap and trade. I'm sure they wouldn't even consider card check. The Republicans have been way over there in the pockets of the wealthy for a LONG time. They've just been a whole lot less discreet about it over the past 10 years. Obama's pretty much in the middle. He gives you all of the above, but with water and a little less substance. My guess is that, deep down, those of us who identify ourselves as Democrats or Dem leaning Independents and are very politically aware are really pretty seriously liberal deep down.
Her gender and ethnicity kept the focus away from the fact she was Catholic.
Then I predicted the next would be Jewish and likely female as well for the same reasons.
And thats what we got.
And thats why you are reading this ridiculous lesbian angle, so it gets women and the liberals to rally around the pick they want.
Pick a black woman from New Orleans.
This is not about race or even about religion.
Its about America being made up of 25% Catholics and 2% Jews and yet there being 100% representation for Roman Catholics/ Jews. And Catholics are supposed to see the Pope as the word of God, which is why the first Chief Justice John Jay made it a State Law in New York that Catholics would have to take special oaths that put America before Rome.
Now we look back at that and say all our forefathers were a bunch of bigots and anti-Catholics.
No, this is an issue and we are just too damn politically correct today to even broach the subject.
No. Kagan is not an excellent choice.
She alongside with Sotomayor makes it official, the Supreme Court is now entirely made up of Roman Catholics and Jews.
I know this makes me sound like a biggot, but you people want to pretend like there is diversity in the court because 1 Roman Catholic is black, 1 Roman Catholic is Hispanic, 1 Roman Catholic is Italian... they are all still Catholic.
Sure there are minorities on the bench.... but they are all Catholic/Jewish.
Sure we have 3 women on the Court but they are also Catholic/Jewish
i.e. there is no real diversity, only the illusion of it.
I dont see a diverse Court.
I see a Holy Roman Court.
I see 4 Opus Dei members pretending not to be Opus Dei.
I see 2 that are Jesuit educated.
I see 3 Jewish members from Roman-converso families that are either married to Jesuit Professors or Jesuit awarded from these Roman Catholic Universities and members of the Belizean Grove.
I see the Holy Roman Empire alive and well and in full control and the driving force behind the Imperial nature of the American Empire.
America better gets its act together and fast.
The funniest thing is that the left wingers think Obama is too right wing and the right winger think Obama is increasingly becoming the epitome of "liberal fascism". They said he was Hitler!
He's kept most of his promises. If you didn't KNOW WHAT THOSE WERE, them maybe it's your fault? He likes to compromise. Don't like it? Vote for McCain--maybe you'd like his Supreme Court choice better.
And, no, I don't like the fact that he'd rather compromise than work to pass bills that would actually accomplish what they set out to do. In the last couple of years, the term "bipartisan" has become code for "weak and ineffective" legislation. The Republicans automatically vote against anything Obama is in favor of, yet he keeps pursuing "bipartisanship" like some nonexistent Holy Grail.
I'm not sure what you mean by "vote for McCain," since it's too late to vote for him in the 2008 election. I wouldn't have voted for McCain anyway, but that taunt sounds suspiciously like the "go to Russia" rejoinder to liberals who dare to criticize the status quo. I voted for Obama the way I usually vote for Democrats: as the lesser of two evils.
So for at least this PARTICULAR progressive issue we DID have a strong majority in the country, and sufficient support in Congress. Please explain again just why it's so 'stupid' to think that it would have been passed, and why Obama worked so hard behind the scenes to ensure that it wasn't.
We weren't passed from an abuser to a negligent custodian: we were just passed from one abuser to another more personable one. Some of us think that the latter is actually more dangerous, because he can hide the abuse more convincingly (you yourself providing a prime example of that ability).
In 1 year Obama has gotten us 10 yards. By your on metric an 8 year term yields 80 yards back. You are crying because the President didn't win every 40 year old fight in a week? Grow up Cenk. The problem with progressives is that they have the appetites of a shark and the political skill set of goldfish. Every inch of ground is being defended. Every yard we gain is against the weight of the world.
Worst economy since the great depression, two wars that have lasted longer than WWII and WWI combined. 30 years of the insanely weak job creation and infrastructure policy finally coming home to roost. The shift from a heavy manufacturing economy to an agricultural light manufacturing service economy finally reaching a crescendo. And you have the stones to cry about the ten yards he got us back from the abyss.
Let me ask you this Cenk, name someone who did it better? Tell me someone who has gotten more than the ten yards the President got in 1 fing year! Tell me one gd way to get 60 votes on any initiative you really want and I'll quit my job and come work for your campaign for President. Because if you know how to actually do it better instead of crying about it more, you should be President. Open season on the President is over.
And that was with nothing like the Congressional majorities that Obama enjoys.
That's why we're so disgusted with seeing Obama fritter away the mandate that he had to reverse course (or deliberately discard it, depending on one's opinion of why this happened).
Since you asked.
Close Gitmo within the first month...actually close it, you have got to be kidding me? I don't think that was the promise he made. He took action on Gitmo right away, there has been successes but
Gitmo is in limbo do to Congress not Obama.
Obama does not write legislation he signs it in to law. You want to bash someone them bash the Congress and the Senate they are the ones holding up any progress this President has tried to make.
Is there not legislation for green energy, I think so, although Sen. Graham (R) has decided to withhold his support for the Climate bill if Immigration Reform moves forward.
I'm not sure your comment about "perusing through what we checked out at the library" and " so we aren't fed cloned beef" is worth commenting on.
Lack of progress and solutions can be attributed to lack of support, cooperation and compromise from the opposition, if you can't see that then there is nothing more to talk about. The comment "tolerate this nonsense" is how you would describe his Presidency?
Can you tell me which of his promises has he failed to address in this his first 16 months? Do you think changing ones position on an issue is always a sign of weakness?
Obama campaigned very specifically for health-care reform that included a robust public option, reduction of drug prices via reimportation, and no mandates - plus, of course, 'transparency' and "an end to business-as-usual in D.C." He dealt away the first two in back-room discussions with industry, refused to work with Congress until all three positions had been reversed in the proposed legislation, and when the public option reappeared at the end acted to squash it. So he did not merely 'fail to address' these promises: he worked actively to subvert them. This is not mere incompetence: it is overt treachery.
He put foxes in charge of the financial hen-house and placed no pressure on them for real reform there. The ACLU gave him a 33% success rate for even TRYING to carry through on reversing the erosion of civil liberties under Bush. Just for starters (given the 250-word limit here).