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Vote on Kagan Any Day Now

Would-be justice still has full Senate to go

by
Marc Tracy
July 06, 2010
Elena Kagan.(Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)
Elena Kagan.(Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)

Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee concluded last week, so now we await the inevitable mostly party-line vote sending her to the full Senate, where there will be a bit more wrangling, filibuster threats, maybe one extra controversy we don’t quite know about yet, a vote, and then, finally, a new Supreme Court justice. For now, let us wallow in the “vapid and hollow” process—her words!

• Politico does the Politico-y thing and says that Kagan’s “vapid and hollow” critique has never rang more true, so doesn’t that make her a hypocrite? (Um, no?) [Politico]

• Endorsements!. [Philadelphia Inquirer; WP; Slate; NYT]

• Jeffrey Rosen notes that Kagan would have the seat once held by Justice Louis D. Brandeis (under the same logic that governs, say, lineal championships in boxing: She would replace Stevens, who replaced Douglas, who replaced Brandeis.) Kagan should model herself after Brandeis, adds Rosen, who “eloquently defended [the] economic and moral justice” of Progressive laws. Brandeis, of course, was the High Court’s first Jew; should Kagan be confirmed, she will be the current Court’s third. [NYT]

• I linked to it last week, but please watch Jon Stewart’s take on the Committee’s questions about her “Upper West Side” background.

The word “Senatize” ought to go in the Oxford English Dictionary: “v.: To make something funny unfunny, stilted, and lasting longer than ten seconds.”

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.