The Official Apolyton Off-Topic Rampant, Unfounded Supreme Court Speculation Thread

[Drake Tungsten]

I hope he nominates Bill Clinton.

You don't get to call people "****"

QFT

[Solomwi]

Do it anyway. KH and Drake will appreciate the utter lack of concern about the opinions of others that it would show.

[Hauldren Collider]

Except that it would show a lack of concern for their opinions.

Admittedly, regarding social etiquette, I really do lack concern for their opinions.

[Hauldren Collider]

I'm hoping for a reverse Souter.

Yes please.

[Ecofarm]

^^ +1

Seems fair. I'm pro-gay rights and legalization, but also pro-life... so... meh.


"Why/How?!"
Answer:

I value the right to life over the right to choose an abortion, and I believe life begins at conception.

[Zevico]

I've got my money on number six.

[Drake Tungsten]

Kagan gets the nod...

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama will nominate U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan to serve as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, NBC News’ Pete Williams reported late Sunday night.

Kagan, 50, served as the Dean of Harvard Law School from 2003 to 2009. Obama nominated her to serve in her current post as solicitor general early in 2009, and she won Senate confirmation by a vote of 61-31. She is the first woman to serve as solicitor general of the United States.

She was widely viewed as a front-runner when Obama was considering candidates for a Supreme Court opening last year, but the president ultimately chose Sonia Sotomayor for the job.

Some liberal critics have said that Kagan's views on executive power and the treatment of terrorist detainees are too conservative.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36967616/ns/politics-supreme_court/

Awesome. Kagan has no paper trail and is probably our best chance for a Souter.

edit: The NYT already has a good story out about this...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/us/politics/10court.html

[Drake Tungsten]

Imagine a candidate for the U.S. Senate who has never taken a public stand on almost any policy issue. Imagine that her campaign consists of asking people for their support because, according to friends and colleagues, the candidate is smart, fair, and good to others. When her friends are asked what her views are on various political matters, they reply that they don't know—but that they're confident she'd make an excellent senator.

This bizarre hypothetical closely resembles the actual campaign to put Elena Kagan on the Supreme Court. (The White House will reportedly announce her nomination on Monday.) Of course, a Supreme Court justice is not a conventional politician in the way a senator is, but being a justice involves making often controversial judgments about the law, and these judgments are unavoidably political. Unfortunately, nobody seems to know what Kagan's views are on most political issues, nor does anyone know what she believes about how judges ought to interpret the Constitution, how much deference courts should give to Congress and state legislatures, and what role the judiciary should play in checking the powers of the executive branch. We don't know because she hasn't told us. Indeed, Tom Goldstein, a Washington lawyer and publisher of SCOTUSblog, describes Kagan as "extraordinarily—almost artistically—careful. I don't know anyone who has had a conversation with her in which she expressed a personal conviction on a question of constitutional law in the past decade."

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/blank-slate

Really, Kagan is the perfect nominee for Obama. She's just like him.

[Drake Tungsten]

All of this may be interesting, but it’s largely beside the point for a Supreme Court Justice. The justices are not really managers of people, certainly not in comparison to the dean of a major law school. Judgment, values, and politics are what matters on the Court. And here I am somewhat at a loss. Clearly, she’s a Democrat. She was a highly regarded member of the White House staff during the Clinton years, but her own views were and are something of a mystery. She has written relatively little, and nothing of great consequence.

As it happens, this weekend I was finishing “The Bridge,” the new biography of Obama by David Remnick, our boss here at the magazine. Since Kagan’s nomination was imminent, I was struck by certain similarities between the President and his nominee. They are both intelligent, of course, but they also share an ability to navigate among factions without offending anyone. Remnick’s Obama is very… careful. He takes no outlandish stands or unnecessary risks. He is an exquisite curator of his own career. All of this is true of Kagan as well.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/05/elena-kagans-nomination.html

Even her long-time friends have no idea what her ideological leanings are.

[Drake Tungsten]

Yesterday on Twitter, Matt Yglesias supplied the rationale for this mentality: "Argument will be simple: Clinton & Obama like and trust [Kagan], and most liberals (myself included) like and trust Clinton & Obama."

Just think about what that means. If the choice is Kagan, you'll have huge numbers of Democrats and progressives running around saying, in essence: "I have no idea what Kagan thinks or believes about virtually anything, and it's quite possible she'll move the Court to the Right, but I support her nomination and think Obama made a great choice." In other words, according to Chemerinksy and Yglesias, progressives will view Obama's choice as a good one by virtue of the fact that it's Obama choice. Isn't that a pure embodiment of mindless tribalism and authoritarianism?

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/05/08/kagan/index.html

Greenwald doesn't like the pick.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I trust Obama to screw up.

[Guynemer]

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/05/08/kagan/index.html

Greenwald doesn't like the pick.

Hardly a surprise, is it? Greenwald has been one of Obama's harshest critics from the left ever since the inauguration.

[Drake Tungsten]

Greenwald's also a pompous moron.

[Guynemer]

Can't disagree with you there, but doesn't that sort of undercut your point?

[Drake Tungsten]

Of course not. My point is that if super-liberal morons like Greenwald don't like Kagan, then she can't be that bad, can she? The worst-case scenario is a SCOTUS nominee that Greenwald would approve of...