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The American political scene today has as much substance as these clouds. (photo: Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton on Flickr)
Although the occasional cipher has been thrust into the highest levels of the Washington political scene in the past (see, for example, Dan Quayle) it seems that the process of driving substance out of the picture has accelerated since John McCain’s inexplicable choice of Sarah Palin to be his running mate. Now that President Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court has been revealed to be Elena Kagan, whose primary accomplishment to date has been to leave no record, instead of the clearly superior and substantial candidate Diane Wood, it seems that substance is in retreat in a way never seen before.
In January of 2009, Obama nominated Dawn Johnsen to head the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department. This was seen as a tremendous move, as Johnsen had the experience, the expertise and an apparent eagerness to take on the job of unraveling a series of horrible legal opinions that had been issued to support the torture program put into place during the Bush administration. Sadly, though, even with 60 votes for Johnsen clearly within reach for an extended time, Obama chose not to fight for Johnsen’s confirmation. As a result, once it became clear that another Supreme Court nomination was going to be necessary, Johnsen withdrew from consideration, knowing that Obama had abandoned her.
Obama’s abandonment of Johnsen echoed his behavior on the FISA issue during the primaries. After initially staking out a position that painted him as the Constitutional law professor fighting for the rule of law against government lawbreaking, he then reversed himself and voted for a terribly flawed bill that extended government abuses. In nominating, and then abandoning, Johnsen, Obama has again tried to don the mantle of fighting for the law, only to side with government immunity to the law in the end. Obama has yet to nominate a replacement for Johnsen, so OLC is forced to continue its second year with an Acting Head.
Consider also the tragic loss of the Lion of the Senate. Teddy Kennedy championed liberal causes over an extended and hard-fought career, only to be replaced by a candidate whose primary merits appear to have been a pickup truck and a well-placed staple. And now, we have the nomination of another cipher to fill the slot of liberal lion Justice John Paul Stevens. Kagan’s nomination sends a clear message to the youth of today who aspire to high office: Don’t take a stand or leave a record, and you too might someday reach the highest levels of government. The converse is also true, as embodied by Johnsen: If you take a stand, you will be abandoned. See this post by Jon Walker for further discussion of how important is for our legislators never to take a public position on the issues.
As a postscript, I should note that in Kagan’s case, it is her record which is the cipher, rather than her intellect, as seen for Quayle and Palin. It’s hard to imagine how an intellectual cipher could become Dean of Harvard Law, but it is surprising nonetheless that one could do so while leaving such a remarkably empty record on the issues.
38 Comments
Obama himself was a cipher, [of whose short past in government and public service very little was on the record and un-spun] thrust into the highest levels of the Washington political scene [and more importantly: POWER] with the help of a myopic Press Corpse and population.
Indeed. Even though, as I mentioned, he flirted with good positions during the primaries. Sadly though, for those who cared to dig further (and as you say, this never made it into the press), his record was virtually non-existent, but what was there was disturbing.
So, here is the most recent apologia for Obama’s choice from the HuffPo:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/10/elena-kagan-supreme-court_n_569866.html?ref=twitter
WASHINGTON — Barring extraordinary circumstances, Solicitor General Elena Kagan should win confirmation to the Supreme Court on the strength of Democrats’ numerical advantage in the Senate.
To stop her from becoming the nation’s 112th justice, Democrats would have to abandon President Barack Obama and his second high court pick or almost all of the GOP senators would have to agree to filibuster the nomination – more than a year after seven of them voted for Kagan to become the solicitor general.
It is unlikely that Republicans will try to block her, said Manuel Miranda, chairman of the conservative Third Branch Conference.
“She shouldn’t be filibustered, she won’t be filibustered,” said Miranda, a former Senate staffer who worked on judicial nominations. “Probably no nominee would have been filibustered. The notion of a filibuster is a distraction. The real issue becomes how heavily she’ll be scrutinized and how great an investment in time will Republicans invest. The next level of investment is not a filibuster, but how much effort Republicans will devote to this nomination.”
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My only question then is why is Obama picking the least liberal person? If there is no chance of a filibuster, no reason for a filibuster, etc? The apologists come right out and say that “a democrat would have to buck Obama to vote against her”
WEll, couldn’t that have been true for Diane Wood, and infinitely more qualified, more respected, and more trustworty choice???
I’m sorry, but I cannot possibly defend Obama on this one. This is it. He has screwed the progressive agenda for the next 30 years. The court is now stacked 5-4 against any Progressive legislation for the next 30 years or so. We won’t likely have a shot to fill two supreme court posts again. I truly think that the endgame is in sight. The only 11-dimensional chess that has been played is the one that David Rockefeller and his forebears and progeny have bragged about engaging in, under our very noses, for the past 100 years or more. The installation of an anti-Warren court was always the pivotal piece. Now, they can return to the Gilded Age, except they don’t have to worry about a Cardozo or a Brandeis stopping them this time.
Talk about a plan in the making. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Ms. Kagan has indeed spent most of her life avoiding positions precisely so that this day could come for her. I’m sure these people with vested interests in dismantling our democracy and establishing a client state of the new world financial order have had their fingers and influence on many potential puppets. Kagan could easily have been approached sometime in her early professional career, at least by the time she made it to the Clinton White House, and been told “keep your opinions to yourself, don’t rock the boat, go with the flow, and you’ll be on the short list one day. If you don’t believe us, just watch who we appoint as President. We’ll convince the masses to fall in love with someone just as cowardly, thin, and shallow as yourself. And if they can be President, then that person will nominate you to SCOTUS.” OF course, Hillary was probably too opinionated to be that POTUS. I should have realized long ago that people like her and Diane Wood don’t get to break those ceilings anymore.
America – not a meritocracy. A puppetocracry.
Indeed. He is actively choosing Kagan over Wood, and that is all we need to know.
More or less reduced to the level of discussion surrounding a junior high student council election.
Do we have more votes?
Who can stop it.
Not why someone might be opposed for other than win/loss reasoning.
Such as qualifications, or judicial philosophy.
Because Obama is NOT a progressive in any sense of the word. He is a center-right politician in the mold of Clinton, Sarkozy, & Merkel, and identifies with the corporate interests he serves.
sad day today. bad news for almost all americans.
The thing is, at the end of the day, by November 2008, the Obama reveal was there for all to judge carefully and to come to a conclusion not much off what people have arrived at since.
Nice change from your usual micromanaging of General Horribilis. Well done.
Kagan Nomination Accelerates Flight of Substance from American Political Scene
What happened to fight?As in fight or flight?
Headline I’d LIKE to see:
Kagan Nomination Accelerates Fight FOR substance in American Political Scene!
It’s an institutional thing. The movements detected here are theoretical.
I agree, but I’m not going to hold my breath hoping for any of the powers who could actually do something to fight for substance in this instance.
As usual, I don’t disagree with any of your points Jim. Having read all of Glenn Greenwald’s concerns about Kagan, I’m not ready to condemn her because Wood would’ve been a more comforting pick for my liberal sensibilities.
I don’t think anyone really knows how she will turn out. Having worked under Abner Mikva and Thurgood Marshall, she had two great tutors. Her parents were children of immigrants and it appears helped her form some good values. The jury is out on her and I am going to wait until I hear her answers at the Senate inquisition before I decide. And judging from how such hearings have gone recently, I may not learn much from them.
Obama wants Kagan. They are like-minded and share an aversion to conflict, to change, to making waves. Pity they’ve both chosen the law and politics as careers, because those are conflict ridden activities of enormous consequence to others in which choice is the constant and battle is routine.
Obama isn’t compromising anything to pick her, except his campaign promises and his past rule-of-law rhetoric.
Kagan supporter Jamin Raskin of American University law school debated Glennzilla this morning. Transcript here. It highlighted Glenn’s case against Kagan, in that Raskin’s support of Kagan boiled down to I went to law school and served on the law review with her and she’s great. Might be enough if Kagan were running for class president, but she’s not.
I think that you’re being generous just calling him “center-right,” bc I think BHO’s even more than “center-right.” That said, I agree. And yes, it is the way it is in Europe as well.
BHO has chosen a judge in his own center-right image. I *guess* it’s “nice” that she’s a female, but that’s in the same league as saying it’s nice that a minority person is POTUS. It doesn’t do us any good, if that person is not progressive, and neither BHO or Kagan are.
Kagan sat on a Goldman Sachs advisory council between 2005 and 2008. It was her job to offer “analysis and advice to Goldman Sachs and its clients.
How is OBAMA going to hide Kagan ties to GOLDMAN? This is going to be fun!
Dick Durbin must think GOLDMAN SACHS cares about average people? WOW
KAGAN is a WALL STREET lover, OBAMA is a WALL STREET LOVER, they both belong together.
From the New Yorker’s Jeffery Toobin, also a classmate and personal friend of Ms. Kagan’s since law school. His judgment is more sober than Jamin Raskin’s (emphasis added):
The choice is not just Obama’s or even the Senate’s, it’s also the American people’s. We ought to have fuller information about anyone about to appointed to a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court. Especially here, because Ms. Kagan would replace Justice Stevens, who kept a fine balance on an extremely polarized court. Ms. Kagan’s mystery must be as attractive to Obama as her cleverness and ambition.
Shorter Elena: “I LOVE the Federalist Society!”
*gah*
He’s way, way to the right of Sarkozy and Merkel. There is no party he could fit into. He is off-the-scale rightwing politically over here.
Well written, Jim. Here’s the “substance” (the pending mainstream media narrative): Kagan is gay, therefore she’s a flaming liberal (nevermind her support for the unitary executive, the MIC, black ops and indefinite detention). Republicans are heroes for not attacking her for her sexual preference even though Republican Jesus would. The new improved Republicans are more modern, moderate and tolerant. So vote Republican in the mid terms. Yay Republicans! /s
I guess there is sort of a Gresham’s Law operating here: bad political appointments drive out good political appointments.
Are you saying this because she’s jewish?!?!
>>>I’m sure these people with vested interests in dismantling our democracy and establishing a client state of the new world financial order have had their fingers and influence on many potential puppets.<<<<
I for one am tired it is always the same old judeo-christians. I would have preferred an asian lesbian buddist.
The people who voted for Obama weren’t necessarily “myopic” – that implies they were gullible and is inappropriate. I think it was a combination of their knowing that McCain was a loose cannon too eager to drop bombs on other countries, and hoping that Obama would make substantive changes. He has disappointed me and many others on the change aspect – he is too center right for my taste, but he is still a better president than McCain would have been.
But “you” are not my people, to paraphrase the words left out of Kagan’s comment. Fair enough; even a centrist or center-right figure might say that with feeling about a political action committee of rightwing lawyers, let alone a credible voice of the left.
The press is full of the story that she has dreamed of being a member of the Sup.Ct. since high school. It’s not full of what she dreamt of doing with that power and status.
Ms. Kagan knows how to fight. The question is, what will she fight for beyond her own preferment. I’d love to be surprised and find that Ms. Kagan is a progressive, Upper West Side woman of substance. Until she creates her own record of decisions, she will remain tainted by Obama’s too careful approach.
He pays homage to the status quo because it is the status quo, and thereby fails to deal with the problems we face and empowers the forces that created such problems because they remained unopposed. He won’t even use harsh language, much less harsh legislation or harsh whipping to ensure votes for favored policies. Those he reserves for his disappointed supporters.
Raw Story published an article today in which they cite Kagan as supporting indefinite detention. In addition to Goldman Sachs, Kangan has ties to Larry Summers & Cass Sustein. Summers appointed Kagan to replace Clark at Harvard Law even though she had only taught there a few years since leaving the Clinton Administration in 1999. While at Harvard Law she hired Sustein from the University of Chicago. Connect the dots.
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0510/kagan-supported-detaining-terror-suspects-indefinitely-trial/
Another Corporatist seat. Wonderful….NOT!!
Larry Lessig just gave a spirited defense of Kagan to Rachel Maddow.
It’s not a minor deal that Larry Lessig is willing to go to bat for her.
It was ever so, which is no reason for not taking a stand and leaving a record. There is no safe way to be a progressive. If you want to be safe, you are not a progressive.
Exactly correct Harpie! Obama was Robert Rubin/Goldman Sach’s Trojan Horse: packaged as if it was “liberal and progressive” only so Obama could get the Democratic nomination, but once in power it is clear he is a tool of Rubin and Goldman Sachs. Note that Kagan too has taken $40,000 since 2006 from GSachs for one day a year meetings! Kagan is another Goldie, chosen by Goldie Obama. They will both work for Bob Rubin and Goldman Sachs.
Ho hum ~ more of the FDL’s boring twitter re PBHO ~ zzzzzzzzzzzzz
Jim, respectfully I put it to you that you are missing something in your analysis when you say Obama flirted with good positions during the primaries.
He had to. To get the Democratic nomination, he had to. Obama’s ties to Robert Rubin and Goldman Sachs go back to 2004 at least when Obama decided to run for the Senate and one of his old Harvard Law School pals, who happened to be a friend of Rubin’s, contacted Obama. He got financial support from Rubin and Goldman. In April, 2006, Obama gave an address at the opening bash of the Rubin/Goldman Sachs funded Hamilton Project. It is a neoliberal think tank embedded in the Brookings Institution. It’s purpose: more NAFTA-like agreements, cuts in entitlements, outsourcing of jobs from America, relaxation of financial rules and regulations.
In Obama’s 2006 speech at the Hamilton Project, Obama paid lavish tribute to “my friend Bob [Rubin]” and called for more NAFTA agreements and slashes in entitlements. Precisely what his recently formed deficit reduction committee (many of whom like Alice Rivlin and Anne Fudge have ties to the Hamilton Project) wants.
So Obama was Robert Rubin and Goldman SAch’s Trojan Horse in the Democratic primaries: disguised to look liberal otherwise he never would have gotten the nomination. But once in power, we have seen who the real Obama is. He has cast off all the “change” rhetoric and the “openness in government” language for the usual secret deals with big corporations behind closed doors. Obama is owned by Rubin and Goldman Sachs. Note too that Kagan has ties to Goldman Sachs and has been meeting since 2006 (getting $10,000 a year for a one day meeting) with them on policy issues.
Just like his own extensive ties to Goldman Sachs which he has hidden. These go back to 2004 when he decided to run for the Senate. One of his old HLS buddies was the go between between Obama and Robert Rubin, Mr. Goldman Sachs. Obama also spoke at the opening ceremonies of the Rubin-Goldman Sachs funded “Hamilton Project” in April, 2006. He thanked “my friend Bob [Rubin] and spoke at length about the need for more NAFTA-like agreements AND cuts to entitlements (like social security). So it’s not surprising that at least 2 of his deficit reduction committee members (Alice Rivlin and Anne Fudge) are tied to the Hamilton Project/Brookings.
Needless to say, Goldman Sachs was also the biggest contributor to Obama’s senatorial campaign and the second biggest to his presidential campaign.
Respectfully disagree Alank. Obama’s ties to Goldman Sachs and Robert Rubin were pretty well hidden and not discussed at all in the mainstream media, certainly never on television from which most Americans make up their minds.
Obama like Kagan had a very thin resume and his connections to the power elite were never revealed to the people. In fact, just the contrary. There was an obsession on his supposed link to radicals and clerics. That was all a smokescreen to cover up the fact who he was really pal’in around with: Goldman Sachs and Robert Rubin. Obama’s work as a community organizer also played into this. In fact, he himself recently has said he took that job mostly because after he graduated from Harvard law he had no job for 3 months! That’s a far cry from the way it was presented in 2008: with him as some kind of idealistic guy working with average people.
Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court is another example of his deceit and betrayal of the American people.
Kagan was an Advisor to Goldman Sachs Global Markets Institute, and was involved all their investment decisions from 2005 through 2008 – in preparation for their obscene Bail Out. Since the current investigations of Goldman Sachs will likely reach the Supreme Court, her involvement with these Rothchild banksters should disqualify her as a justice on the Supreme Court. However, the fact that Goldman Sachs was the Biggest Single Private Donor to Obama’s Election Campaign may shed light on his motivation to push for her seat on the Supreme Court, where she can influence the outcome of that case. http://www.lifeinthemixtalk.com/?tag=larry-summers
Obama’s “Smoking Gun”: His Hamilton Project Speech shows his links to Goldman, Entitlement Cuts (Part 1) http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/17981
That Kagan was appointed as the Dean of Harvard University by Larry Summers, is no asset on her resume either. Summers was fired from Harvard after it lost 18 billion because of his corrupt trading and irresponsible investments. In the end Harvard was forced to pay another $497.6 million in termination fees to investment banks (Rothchild-owned banks) and agreed to pay another $425 million over 30-40 years. After Obama appointed Summers as Treasury Secretary, his corrupt deals with Rothchild banksters forced America taxpayers to Bail Out Goldman Sacks and the Rothchild-owned Federal Reserve.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aaZGpGgHsVGw
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/1/715620/-Summers-Fired-WhistleblowerLost-Harvard-Billions
Last month, it was revealed that in 2008 Summers earned nearly $8 million from Wall Street banks, some of which, like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, were now receiving tens of billions of taxpayer funds. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090530_is_larry_summers_taking_kickbacks_from_the_banks_hes_bailing_out/
Despite the fact that Kagan has never been a judge in any courtroom, of any court, in the United States, the Rothchild-owned media has hyped her as “absolutely brilliant… Front-Runner for the Supreme Court.” However, beside Kagan’s fervent loyalties to Israel, aka the State of Rothchild, and her views about restricting free speech, she would also be the most unqualified justice in history.
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/05/10/elena-kagan-will-be-the-most-unqualified-justice-in-history/
Kagan’s knowledge and view of the Constitution is extremely questionable. Her absolute silence over the past decade on the most intense Constitutional controversies speaks very poorly of her. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/13-0
Furthermore, in her nomination press conference she said “…in our Constitutional Democracy” – obviously she is unfamiliar with the Constitution and the Pledge of Allegiance.
Kagan is a nighmare waiting to happen.
It seems that she is exactly like Obama. We know nothing of where she stands or how she will vote. Obama will be out in 3 years but she will be there for another 20 years. That’s a long time to change the landscape of America pro corporate.
If no one really knows her views, how do you know she is swaying anyone, perhaps she is being swayed instead. You can’t have it both ways. To say she is a great persuader if knows her views. Same views as Obama, Pro-insurance, pro-wallstreet, pro-corporate. Afraid of a fight.
Not taking the correct argument of 100+ years precedent in citizens united and a little of her writing that does exist, indicates she supports corporatocracy. Working for Goldman sachs during the crucial scandal years. Being for the telecoms and cable companies.
Actually, it’s kind of a red flag when someone has gotten to such a hi position without any history. How does that happen?
Shouldn’t a person at this prestigious level in the country have some solid things they’ve accomplished – what has this person been promoted for. Shouldn’t she have taken some stand on something at some point and in academia no less? It’s disturbing.
One of the problems with our discussions of politics is the notion that a “liberal” can ever be a lion. Phil Ochs wrote a song “Love Me I’m a Liberal”.
Complete lyrics at:
Liberals walk away from real action. Their reputations are more important than the fight. We’ve had few leftists in congress. But at least we had a few lions on the court who tried to uphold the law. But the Supreme Court was always a servant of the elite. It is just so much more obvious now. The whole bankster mentality that rules us now no longer is a shadow government. The likes of Rubin, Summers, Sunstein are right in our faces and saying “Suckers.”