Kagan Appointment

As everyone knows, Pres. Obama has nominated  Solicitor General, Elena Kagan to replace Justice Stevens who is retairing from the Supreme Court. The nomination has drawn fire from both left and right. I assume that she will be affirmed, however. She seems to be intellectually qualified even though she was never a judge and she has a rather sparse paper trail. I have to assume that she will be a reliable liberal vote on the Court.

Frankly, this is one of the consequenses of Presidential elections. The President gets to nominate judges that he believes think like him. Appointments to the Federal bench are, in my opinion, the most long-lasting  and material impacts of a Presidency. During his eight years as President, Bill Clinton appointed a vast number of liberal judges whose rulings have grave impacts on a wide range of issues that affect our lives.

This is the second Obama nominee. While Kagan, like Sotomayor, is a liberal, her confirmation will not markedly alter the make-up of the Court. Both she and Sotomayor replaced other liberals, thus the balance of the Court is little changed.

It is interesting to note that the "liberals" they replaced were both appointees of Republican Presidents (Souter by H. W. Bush and Stevens by Gerald Ford). Its ironic that many GOP nominees move to the left over the years. It never seems to work the other way.