AT LEAST SHE WON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO KENNEDY AND BIDEN:

In Old Article, Kagan Invites Tough Questioning (JESSE J. HOLLAND, Jun. 03, 2010, AP)

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's review of the book A Confirmation Mess is creating a confirmation mess of its own.

Kagan's 1995 commentary on Stephen Carter's book rendered a harsh judgment on how lawmakers question Supreme Court nominees, and that has some senators preparing to interrogate her about it.

"I talked to her about that essay," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "She said, 'I think I'm probably going to hear that quoted back to me a few times during the hearing.'

"I said, 'Starting with me.'" [...]

Kagan wrote:

— "If the recent hearings lacked acrimony, they also lacked seriousness and substance."

— "The practice of substantive inquiry has suffered a precipitous fall since the Bork hearings, so much so that today it hardly deserves the title 'practice' at all."

— "When the Senate ceases to engage nominees in meaningful discussion of legal issues, the confirmation process takes on an air of vacuity and farce, and the Senate becomes incapable of either properly evaluating nominees or appropriately educating the public."

— "Senators today do not insist that any nominee reveal what kind of Justice she would make, by disclosing her views on important legal issues. Senators have not done so since the hearings on the nomination of Judge Bork. They instead engage in a peculiar ritual dance, in which they propound their own views on constitutional law, but neither hope nor expect the nominee to respond in like manner."

They'll show her...by talking more about themselves.....

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 3, 2010 5:41 AM