WHAHAPPEN?:

The Disappointing Kagan Pick (Matthew Rothschild, May 11, 2010, The Progressive)

Unfortunately, Kagan’s government experience is with the Executive Branch and with upholding its powers. That’s what she did as Solicitor General, remember. She went to bat for the Presidency.

And this President, like George W., has embraced a vast expansion of Executive Powers. So Kagan or her deputies have repeatedly gone into court to invoke the undemocratic doctrine of state secrets. And they’ve gone into court to assert the right to hold any person, captured by the military or the CIA or by some foreign power anywhere in the world, for an indefinite period of time at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan—without recourse to any due process rights whatsoever.

In Maqaleh v. Gates, she told a federal court: “When it comes to military facilities, unlike Guantanamo, that are truly abroad—particularly those halfway across the globe in an active war zone—courts in the United States exceed their role by second-guessing the political branches about the reach of habeas jurisdiction.”

It’s no surprise that Kagan disdains due process for detainees. At her confirmation hearings as Solicitor General, Kagan testified that she had no problem with that.

Well, I do. And Justice John Paul Stevens sure did. And the Constitution does.

The Constitution is utterly silent as regards matters outside the borders of the Republic it creates.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 11, 2010 2:12 PM