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The Kagan Hearings

Elena Kagan

 

One of the reasons everyone loves to hate on Supreme Court confirmation hearings is that they are not merely "vacuous and hollow," but also often show the nominee at his or her personal worst. Last year I complained that then-Judge Sonia Sotomayor had shrunk herself down to about a third of her usual size in order to convince Senate Republicans that they had nothing to fear from her. Justice Samuel Alito came off looking far more grumpy and much less warm and insightful than he has been on the bench in recent years. In fact, with the exception of Chief Justice John Roberts, it's hard to think of a modern nominee who came off well at his or her hearings, and I can think of a few (Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork) whose hearings turned them into characters to which they bear no personal resemblance at all.

And then came Kagan. One of the things that's been difficult to explain is why anyone who's ever met her—from her students to her colleagues at Harvard to her staff at the Solicitor General's office—lights up when talking about her. Whereas an American public that fell pretty hard for Roberts and Sotomayor has remained almost completely indifferent to Kagan. A C-span poll done last week reflected that only 19 percent of Americans even know Elena Kagan is the nominee to be confirmed this week, while 43 percent were able to correctly identify Sotomayor a year earlier.

One explanation for this is that Kagan never had a personal story that grabbed American voters by the heartstrings and dragged them into this hearing room. But the other explanation—the one that is increasingly evident today—is that to know Elena Kagan is to love her. This is what her boosters and students have been telling me all along: While on paper Kagan appears to be made out of, well, paper, in person she lights up a room.

Read the rest..

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Awesome article.  I have wondered the same question.. why so many people like her so much.. or have nothing to say. She simply does not have those negative stories that dog the candidates. Besides, she is a very likeable person.

Yesterday, I saw a small segment of her exchanges with Sen.Lindsey Graham - he was asking if she is a liberal and progressive.. and she said yes to both and that elections do make a difference, and they should. She is straight forward and disarming in her answers. It is difficult to argue with her especially when it she delivers her answers straight up, without negative body language and with total assurance and as final word. She leaves no opening for further discussion in the way in which she responds.  She is a pleasure to watch - very knowledgeable, very sharp and witty... what little I have been able to see so far (online) has been excellent.

When I can, I am watching the hearings on AP.

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Added AP link.


-- Edited by Sanders on Wednesday 30th of June 2010 01:38:06 PM