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Potential Justice’s Appeal May Be Too Bipartisan (ERIC LICHTBLAU, 5/18/09, NY Times)

When Elena Kagan went before the Senate Judiciary Committee in February as President Obama’s nominee for solicitor general, Republicans were almost as effusive as the Democrats in their praise for her.

There was no daylight between Ms. Kagan, who was the dean of Harvard Law School, and Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, as he led her through a six-minute colloquy about the president’s broad authority to detain enemy combatants. “Do you believe we’re at war?” the senator asked. “I do, senator,” she answered crisply.

Indeed, there was so much adulation in the air from Republicans that one Democrat, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, joked at the hearing that she understood how Ms. Kagan “managed to get a standing ovation” from the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.

But with Ms. Kagan now regarded as one of the leading contenders for a seat on the Supreme Court, her reputation for finding the middle on difficult legal and political issues could prove both a strength and a liability. As much as some Republicans praise her, a number of liberals say they are suspicious that she may lean too far toward the middle.