Elena Kagan Isn't Experienced Enough for the Supreme Court? Really?!

Saturday Night Live had an especially timely segment on Weekend Update this week called, "REALLY?!"

Government officials didn't check the no-fly list until the plane with Faisal Shahzad was ready to take off? Really?!

Two TSA agents got into a fist fight when one made fun of the other for -- *ahem* -- the size of certain body parts one observed as the other walked through the X-Ray machine at security?

REALLY?!

Well, here's another one we can add to the list -- this headline in the print version of the Washington Post, " High Court Nominee Never Let Lack of Experience Hold Her Back." (The online headline for the same article is different, "Elena Kagan: '10th Justice' Has Deep Legal Knowledge But no Bench Experience."

So thank you Seth, Amy and Tina, for letting me borrow this -- REALLY?!

Because if the nominee was a man with these credentials (especially a Republican man), he'd be hailed as the perfect choice to broaden the view of the court, like say former Solicitor General Ted Olson or the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, whose claim to fame before being nominated to the Supreme Court in 1972 was being a part of Richard Nixon's Justice Department.

But somehow, for Elena Kagan Princeton, Oxford, and Harvard aren't enough?

She clerked for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. She served in two different presidential administrations in a legal capacity. She was nominated to be an appellate court judge by President Clinton, but because of GOP delays, her nomination was never voted on. She was Dean of Harvard Law School and, just for some icing on the cake, is currently the first woman Solicitor General of the United States -- the position that is often referred to as the 10th Supreme Court Justice.

So she's experienced enough to be the 10th, but not enough to officially become one of The Nine?

I know Republicans are compelled to create some theater around any Supreme Court nomination, but wouldn't it be nice if, for once, the cable news talking head's didn't buy into it? Maybe they could do a little digging on their own about her qualifications and cut though the talking points that get handed to them. Asking questions is a good thing, but it be so refreshing if they came up with their own. I think we'd all enjoy that. There's plenty of background information out there on Kagan, so let's have news organizations review some of if on their own and see what that anaylsis would look like.

Really!

While Joanne is trying to figure out just how much experience would be "enough" to land a spot on the Supreme Court, you can also find her at her place, PunditMom.

Comments

[Lawyer Mama]

41 of our Supreme Court Justices did not have bench experience when nominated for the Supremes. Of course, all of them were men....

[Jan M.]

It seems to me that one man is keeping his promises in nominating her

[Bill E]

Since Republicans elected George Bush twice and he left us with a never-ending economic disaster and two unending wars, I'll take Elena Kagan's "inexperience" any day over George Bush's and his cronies.