NBC: Obama will pick Kagan as next Supreme Court Justice

A scoop from NBC tonight:

President Barack Obama will nominate U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan to serve as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, NBC News’ Pete Williams reported late Sunday night.

Kagan, 50, served as the Dean of Harvard Law School from 2003 to 2009. Obama nominated her to serve in her current post as solicitor general early in 2009, and she won Senate confirmation by a vote of 61-31. She is the first woman to serve as solicitor general of the United States.

From 2005 - 2008, Ms. Kagan also served as a paid advisor to Goldman Sachs.

http://www.americablog.com/2010/05/nbc-obama-will-pick-kagan-as-next.html

 

Cool! Goldman Sachs on the bench. Gotta love it.

 

Not a surprising choice for Obama. She is young and is extremely liberal. Considering she hasn't even sat on the federal bench, she will have few legal opinons for the Republicans to attack her on. The biggest thing she will have to explain will be her position to prevent the military to recruit on the Harvard campus when she was dean, because of the military's position on "don't ask, don't tell".

Confirmation hearings are such a joke these days.

Interesting to note that with her pending appointment, there will be no Protestants on the Supreme Court.

 

As I was browsing various blogs, there was a brief mention that conservatives were going to mention a romance she had 15 years ago. Dont know how much fire is there, will be interesting to see more about it and how conservatives approach it.

 

They can't attack her on grounds of previous relationships...while there might be talk of that behind the scenes, the republicans won't make those comments in public for fear that the republican party would come across as being sexist towards women. (The liberal media, would happily do that if they get an opportunity).... Its part of the reason, the Republicans couldn't push hard on Sotomayor for fear of offending the women or latino populartion.

What I see happening is this:

1) Both parties will use this as a huge fundraising topic to try to raise much needed cash in an election year
2) Republicans will criticize her for being a judicial activist
3) Democrats will paint her as a friend of the common person with a sympathetic heart
4) There will be very partisan rhetoric in the media leading up to the confirmation hearings
5) In the end, the confirmation hearings will go smoothly with the republicans being respectful towards her.
5) She will get confirmed with about 65 votes, give or take a few

Just my thoughts though, what does everyone else think?

 

I was mistaking about the romance, that was another obama appointee the republicans are holding up Obamas pick for the ambassador to El Salvador, Mari Carmen Aponte, “because of questions about a long-ago boyfriend,” who was baselessly accused of trying to recruit Aponte to spy for Cuba. She had dated the Cuban-American businessman from 1982 to 1994 and “attended some social functions with Cuban diplomats” with him, but the FBI gave Aponte “a clean bill of health.

So carry on about Kagan.