May 18, 2010 10:39 AM
Kagan, Harvard, the US Military, and the Saudis
Like Obama, Kagan is clearly a stealth candidate - meaning someone with little history to tell us who she really is. Predictably, Republicans in Congress seem intent on getting along with the opposition (See The GOP's dilemma: Fight Kagan or go along? by Byron York).
Folks, this is a 50 year old woman on the brink of being appointed to the Supreme Court for life. She will be one of nine people who hold the future of our country - vis a vis the Constitution - in their hands.
This is way too important for us to allow the wool to be pulled over the American public's eyes with fluff pieces in the New York Times about her love for baseball and poker.
(Funny how they played up the narratives of Kagan and Sotomayor - the latter for having overcome a humble background - yet would prefer that no one ever hear the true overcoming story of Justice Clarence Thomas. Oh, that's right - some narratives are more worthy than others....)
Anyway, Newt Gingrich - no matter how we feel about him personally - is on the case, seemingly the only Paul Revere out there:
From Newt.org
SUMMARY: Elena Kagan, while Dean of Harvard Law School between 2003 and 2009, enforced the university's ban on military recruiting through the formal on-campus interview program on grounds that military hiring guidelines were discriminatory. She repeatedly criticized the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexuals in a variety of venues, and in 2005 signed onto an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn the Solomon Amendment, which restricts federal funding to universities that ban military recruiters. (The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of the military and against the academics that had brought the case).While Harvard faculty has lambasted the United States Military for its policy on homosexuals - a policy passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton, Kagan's former boss, in 1993 - the university has simultaneously accepted large donations from the Saudi royal family. We find it extremely hypocritical that Kagan has persistently belittled the military for obeying the law of the land, while her employer has simultaneously accommodated and eagerly sought funding from a regime that is perhaps the worst persecutor of homosexuals and women in the world.
Posted in Elena Kagan, Obama Nation, Supreme Court | Permalink
