The Candidate emerges to the American people as something of a mystery. The individual possesses stellar academic credentials in the form of Ivy League undergraduate and law degrees, and is widely seen as a certified intellectual. Yet, there is something faintly troubling beneath the surface, because the candidate has no real record. Such legitimate concerns, however, are swept away by a giddy and complicit media who lead cheers for the candidate, stressing a “compelling personal story”, “professional trailblazing” and “breaking barriers”.
Who might this candidate be? The reader will be excused if he/she answers that it sounds a lot like Barack Obama, circa 2006-2010. The correct answer, however, is Elena Kagan, former Dean of Harvard Law School, current Solicitor General of the United States, and President Obama’s nominee as the newest Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Miss Kagan, the product of an upper- middle New York City family and an Ivy League education has been nominated to the court by the President because of her keen intellect, her reputed understanding of the way in which the law affects the daily lives of the American people, and, as Obama said, this will also be the first time that three female justices sit on the nation’s highest court. Therefore, Elena Kagan is intelligent, she is empathetic, and above all, she is a woman. Who could ask for anything more!
A closer look at Kagan’s career will show striking similarities to the career of her current boss, President Obama. She attended very good schools, apparently carefully studied American socialism while majoring in history at Princeton, earned a Juris Doctorate at Harvard Law School, taught with Barack Obama at the University of Chicago School of Law, and served as a political appointee in the Clinton White House. She parlayed this record of solid, if unspectacular accomplishment into the Deanship of Harvard Law School, and later into an appointment as the Solicitor General of the United States. Her rapid ascent into these high-profile positions in the legal world is considered groundbreaking not only because she had virtually no pertinent judicial experience, but was also due to the fact that she was the first woman dean of Harvard Law School and the first woman U.S. Solicitor General. She is now the fourth woman nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. She follows her good friend President Obama’s lead in shattering supposed barriers.
Today the mainstream media is beginning a charm offensive on Elena Kagan’s behalf, just as they did for Barack Obama in 2005-2008. Predictably, the New York Times led the parade with a puff piece about Kagan’s life, casting her as precocious, erudite and intellectual, yet a refreshingly down-to-earth sort who plays poker and actually enjoys a smoke once in a while. (If true this will drive humorless liberals to drink!) The Chicago Tribune also gave Kagan a positive review, albeit in a more restrained fashion, examining her stance on gay rights. CBS News, incredibly, put the disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer on the air to give Kagan his effusive support. Once more, we see the parallels to the media love affair with candidate Barack Obama starting around 2005 and continuing to the present day.
Still, these parallels are somewhat disturbing. Like President Obama, we hear conflicting summations of Elena Kagan’s views, ideals, and orientations. She proved evasive in the Senate hearings on her nomination for Solicitor General, and while serving in that capacity she has lost the only case she argued before the Supreme Court, the Citizens United case on the McCain-Feingold election law. The concerns about her preparation and readiness are real, just as the concerns about Obama’s lack of accomplishment were legitimate in 2008.
So, the President chose as his Supreme Court nominee a woman who is considered intelligent but not overbearing, lofty but not haughty, and is above all else, a woman, apparently of liberal inclinations. She is a member of an unofficially protected class to Democrats across the country, just as Barack Obama was in 2008. In fact, Miss Kagan can be seen as nearly an Obama clone. The previously mentioned NYT article unwittingly gave away the game when they reported, “Kagan’s traits…mirror those that Obama sees in himself.” We now see why President Barack Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court. Barack Hussein Obama was not available!
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