Supreme Drama

President Obama announced his choice for the individual who he would like to see in the vacant seat on the US Supreme Court. It's 50-year old Elena Kagan. Here's my early take on it. I'm sure she'll be confirmed after a proper and politicized confirmation process. The Republicans don't have enough senate votes to block the nomination even if they wanted to. They do have enough votes to filibuster an up or down vote but I doubt they will find it wise or necessary to do so. Really though this nomination won't change the make-up of the court at all. Kagan is likely a liberal individual with a political ideology that sits well with the president. Supreme court justices shouldn't be political but we all know that in high profile cases you can always predict how the individual justices will rule. Barack in the president so I do not begrudge him the opportunity of choosing a nominee with a liberal bent. We actually don't know if Kagan has a strong liberal bent but we will know in the coming days. Further, she replaces a liberal justice so if she does turn out to be liberal (99% chance that will be the case) it's not like she's turning the court further left. The court will remain quite moderate. Thankfully.

My one concern with Kagan so far is that she has never been a judge. She's never judged a single case. Thus, she has virtually no paper trail by which the senators can determine how she would come down on potentially hot issues. They've got nothing by which to judge how she would interpret the constitution. That will be a hurdle in her confirmation process but she should end up being nominated fairly quickly. After all, what other choice would you expect from a president who really did all he could to leave as small a voting record as possible during his time in the senate. Just looking at Kagan's resume she appears to be an intelligent, successful individual who knows law. What sort of a judge will she be? It makes me a little nervous to think that the first case ever judged in the career of a Supreme Court Justice will be a Supreme Court case. To put it in terms of baseball - as a manager, would you send somebody that's never swung a bat to the plate in the bottom of the ninth with your team down?

Surely there will be more to come on this topic in the next few weeks as we learn who Elena Kagan is.