I’d add that President Obama seems bent on packing the court with people who never had children, and would suggest that if you haven’t had your sleep disturbed for years on end; haven’t subjugated everything in your life to someone else’s interests … as opposed to subjugating everything to your career interests … and never changed a diaper except, say, as a boutique experience; if you haven’t seen your hopes and dreams grow up, charge off in their own direction and start talking back to you; if you haven’t dealt with abuse of authority and human rights issues sometimes encountered in dealings with obtuse school officials, class bullies and town sports leagues; then there’s a high risk your understanding of life may be somewhat … academic.Yeah, until you've raised a child, (or, in my case, four) you really don't understand life. You can read about it in books, but you certainly don't understand it.
It looks to me like Kagan is just another career climber who has put her whole life into her career and politics. Is that the sort of person that we want on the highest bench in the land?
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I think in ancient Judea before the second temple was destroyed, the name of the court was the Sanhedrin; it met in the hall of hewn stones (there's a poetic name for you, connoting a huge mysterious room chiseled out of the living rock for men to meet in).
To qualify to sit on this court you had to have had children.
Leftists talk about perspective and taking the long view; nothing gives you the long view like having a child. Nothing. Not even studying Geology, or "sustainable" anything.
Kagan's resume is about as thin as her boss's, and while that ought to disqualify her, I don't think President Obama recognizes that fact.
Thin resume? The former dean of Harvard Law School? Not qualified to be a judge because she hasn't had children? Tsk, tsk, tsk....
King Solomon himself wouldn't qualify with you guys if a Democrat appointed him.
Naw, J. If he'd appoint Judge Cummings out of the Northern District in Texas, I'd applaud. I'd whistle and stomp and sing the man's praises.
He's been a judge since 1987 and is a good friend of gun owners everywhere. Graduated cum laude from Baylor Law.
Thin resume.
SHE HAS NEVER JUDGED A CASE. EVER.
She does NOT have a serious record of courtroom experience AT ALL.
Her experience with the law is almost entirely academic.
Compare Kagan's judicial experience (as both a WORKING attroney and as a judge) to Ginsberg. Then tell me she's REMOTELY qualified. Compare her actual WORKING courtroom history to ANY member on the Court and tell me she's remotely qualified.
Kagan's qualified (in terms of courtroom jobs), AT BEST, to be a US Attorney somewhere.
Almost ANY currently sitting federal judge (appointed by presidents of either party) is light years ahead of her in qualifications. The President could probably have done a better job in picking a QUALIFIED candidate by picking a name at random from a hat full of all current US Attorneys or sitting federal judges who were appointed by a Democrat.
She's qualified for a judge's robe (at ANY level of teh federal system) the same way an art crtitic is qualified to paint a masterpiece. I.e., not at all.
So, Geodkyt, ever heard of "Catch 22"? Kagan's not qualified to be a judge because she's never been a judge?
Admit it: in your opinion, Kagan's not qualified because a Democrat wants to appoint her.
This is not Catch 22. Kagan is not qualified to be a SUPREME COURT JUSTICE, higher than which there is not other judge.
If she were merely being appointed a Federal Judge, I would agree with you, that we do not need a judicial history in order to make her a judge.
Being a judge and having to make decisions rather than advocate is a completely different mental course and attitude from being an advocate for one side or the other. It is even more different than being a scrub nurse vs being a brain surgeon. The last time a non-judge was appointed US Supreme Court Chief Justice, it was Earl Warren, appointed by President Eisenhower. Without the judicial practice, we got uneven results, and cases that got the right answer but used the precedent poorly. For every Brown v Board of Education, which got the right answer, albeit with leaps in reasoning, he also brought forth such problems as Hansen v Denkla, which has given generations of lawyers since headaches over the issue of when an out of state defendant is susceptible to the power of the courts. Warren was acknowledged to not be a legal mind like William O. Douglas or Robert Jackson, but Warren has been said to possess "a belief that common sense, justice and fairness were more important than correct analysis." He might get to just and fair results, but without the analysis it is next to impossible to apply that decision to the next case and get just and fair results.
And, I direct your attention to Rose Bird, who, was similarly elevated to the highest Judicial position in the state of California without so much as sitting as a Judge pro tem in Small Claims court. It was said that her problem was that every procedural error was reversible error, whether or not it affected the outcome of the case. Her court reversed so many lower court decisions because she found reversible error that resulted in an unfair trial, that it was said that the experts in trials, the trial judges no longer knew what constituted a fair trial.
Personally I think that all those reversals in the 80's had a major influence on the "three strikes" law that California has had for now 20+ years.
Legal reasoning matters, and Justices do more than decide cases, they establish the precedent for the next, similar case to be decided. More than the correct answer is needed in that job. Chief Justice Warren was said to be susceptible to a hard luck story. Empathy, which the President says is more important than a rigorous legal mind, can only go so far. To produce good Supreme Court decisions that do more than reach the right answer (that show the work) requires a Justice with practice being a judge. And even you admit, J, that Ms Kagan does not have that practice. I compared her with Chief Justice Earl Warren and Chief Justice Rose Bird. Unless and until she is confirmed as Supreme Court Justice, a move equivalent to putting an engineer with no supervisory experience in the CEO position of a corporation, Ms Kagan is President Obama's Harriet Miers, whose appointment would have been the same vaulting appointment.
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