Elena Kagan nominated to replace Stevens

I'm not saying she should go on "Today" and "The View," but I don't think taking a few questions at a press conference is too much to ask. I thought it was standard. If not, I stand corrected.

 

It's not standard. I can't remember the last time a nominee had a press availability. They go before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and that's about it.

 

I can't remember one doing an availability either. That's just not how it's done.

That said, there should be no expectation that a nominee's private life will be considered off limits from media scrutiny. You give up your right to privacy when you agree to be nominated.

 

I read somewhere that the White House press corps was unhappy with Gibbs yesterday or earlier in the week that they didn't get to meet her or ask questions. I swear I read that.

But you and I are in lockstep agreement that pretty much anything goes, short of going through her trash, when it comes to piecing together her biography. All the sudden righteous indignation about it makes me want to vomit.

 

I agree nothing should be off-limits, but that's up to the Senate and Congress and the vetting process, not the media.

I mean, if the media digs up something on a nominee, great, but they shouldn't have to sit for a press conference the way a new coach would.

 

That's simply not true, many on the right, everyone I saw and respect, were outraged more that she was unqualified than that she was unreliable.

 

I haven't weighed in, mostly because it's hard to get through all of YF's passive aggressive posts about Kagan's sexual orientation.

When people say that she is the counterweight to Roberts, you have to understand that there is a Supreme Court bar mafia. There is a group of about 100 lawyers. They nearly all went to an Ivy law school (or the equivalent), were in a top law review position, clerked for a top Court of Appeals judge and/or Supreme Court justice. Their career mostly involves government (OLC, Solicitor General, etc.) and one of a handful of law firms (Gibson Dunn, Mayer Brown). Maybe some are in academia and maybe some are on the Court of Appeals. But these are the legal intellectual heavyweights. Ted Olson, Larry Tribe and Robert Bork are some of the best known names.

Roberts was one of the leaders of that group and there was no way that someone could have argued that he wasn't qualified. Sotamayor was not -- doesn't mean that she wasn't very qualified, but her background mostly was as a trial lawyer and a trial court judge. Obama is probably friends with those people, but he hasn't really devoted his career to the law. Kagan on the other hand is very much one of that group and my guess is that the legal establishment will rally around her.

 

Once upon a time, elected office was considered a good Supreme Court qualification. Last one to stand before the people in an election was O'Connor. IMO, this is a loss to decision making for the Court.

 

False. What killed Miers was bungling the interviews with GOP Senators on the judiciary committee -- and bungling them badly. It wasn't that she wouldn't have been reliable -- or that she wasn't an accomplished woman in her own right -- it was that she had no background at all in Constitutional law, and it showed.

Not only is it not "standard", but I can't recall a single SCOTUS nominee in the last 30 years doing any press between the announcement and the Senate hearings.

 

There were a multitude of issues with Miers. Yes, the right was worried she wasn't ideologically reliable. Yes, she had no background in constitutional law - she'd never even been an adjunct law prof. In addition, she was co-managing partner of a law firm that had to pay $22 million when accused of aiding a client in defrauding investors, an issue that loomed larger and larger as the press began to dig into it.

Bottom line? Harriet Miers was uniquely unqualified from a variety of angles.

 

Here's the story in which the press corps was angry about the lack of access. In light of what you say, it makes little sense for them to react that way:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20004724-503544.html

 

I note that the story you just linked Waylon says it's unprecedented for a nominee to do media.