A Useful Exercise

It strikes me that Orin Hatch has it about right on the Kagan confirmation --it could have been much worse, but there are still plenty of questions to be asked about the nominee's judicial philosophy and values.

Don't expect to get many answers. It would be naive in the extreme to think that Elena Kagan has spent a career obscuring her views and is now going to come crystal clear in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

But what might be useful is for Republicans to use this as a time to acquaint the American people about the attitudes and the views that are deemed, among the liberal legal elite, to be "middle of the road." Outspoken activism about the military on the grounds of "don't ask, don't tell," the importance of "empathy" in judging, reliance on foreign law and so much more are mainstream in the left-of-center circles.

It might be helpful for the American people to realize that these attitudes are what they are going to get when a Democrat president -- just about any Democrat president -- is picking justices. That's because in their world, that's just "mainstream" . . . not even on the left fringe.