See this outstanding analysis of the Kagan confirmation process over at National Review Online. Author Tony Blankley makes these key observations:
"Those [confirmation] rules might be summarized as follows: (1) The president is entitled to an appointee who generally shares his views (i.e., a liberal president is entitled to a liberal justice; a conservative president is entitled to a conservative justice). (2) A nominee should be confirmed if he or she is professionally qualified and of generally good character. (3) The only exception to Rule Two is if the nominee’s views are provably and dangerously outside the mainstream of respectable thought."
"The current rules are obsolete, having come into being at a time when the federal courts had not yet been consciously politicized. Today, liberal presidents attempt to use their appointments with the intent to systematically undermine — not uphold — the Constitution. And they do so because their vision of an ever more statist America is inconsistent with the Constitution’s fundamental purpose: to limit the size and scope of government."
Get that? Forget moral equivalency here: liberals appointing liberals and conservatives appointing conservatives is not a quid pro quo equivalent thing.
Because the liberals are advancing the cause of bigger government while the conservative appointments merely seek to maintain the Constitutional goal of limited government.
Kagan will be a huge boost to the liberal side: can we hold the line on this one and defeat her confirmation bid?
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