What qualifies a leader?

the real question is, can a non judge become a judge...
once confirmed as the junior justice she will dissappear from normal life...
anything and everything she says will be tempered because while she may state her beliefs, in her job she must follow the constitution...
her life will be behind closed doors never to talk about what she is doing...
only a judge knows what that is like...
how could she...

Many people thought that the administration wanted someone with real life experience when they heard a non-judge was desired. But what the public forgot to calculate was the contempt with which average voters are held by Washington. I guess the joke is on America.

Whatever it takes to succeed as the popular dean of an Ivy-League law school cannot be valuable on the Supreme Court.

So which is the real Obama? The Obama who can pass health care, a controversial reform that's been needed for decades, or the Obama who seeks to turn the Supreme Court into a moot court?

I guess Kagan on the left will balance Thomas on the right, in almost every respect.

Isn't there anyone, someone, in this country who has judicial experience that could do this job and deserves this job? Oh now I see. Maybe because she is a buddy of Obama's and now its payback time.

Kagan is minimally qualified, so are a few hundred others. Our judiciary is increasingly politicized. This is another example. We are not looking for a judicious highly qualified person. We are looking for a political bent of mind in the judge. The US judiciary is no more an independent branch of the government; it is a rubber-stamp for the executive government or else the judges would not be nominated by the politicians.I wonder if this is what the fathers of democracy in this land had in mind?

Earl Warren had no bench experience before becoming a Justice. And it didn't stop Reagan from nominating Rehnquist, who had never been a judge before his SCOTUS appointment. Heck, there's nothing in the law that says a Justice has to even be a lawyer! That's only sensible that they would be, but it isn't required in the Constitution.

After Roberts and Alito we need a breath of fresh thinking. I'm older than these two but they think like someone 50 years older than me. I'm 69.

"What are the advantages and disadvantages of selecting a leader with non-traditional qualifications?"

In the history of the court, over a third of the justices have had no judicial experience; they include some of our best-known, and highly-regarded justices. So, what's non-traditional? Oh, wait! 97% of our justices have been men. I see. Tradition.

I (like Jon Stewart) do not want someone as President (or a Justice) who is just like me. I want someone who is painfully, embarrassingly smarter and better than I am. We have that in President Obama, and in his new nominee.

I once served on a law school faculty. (At one of the 17 law schools that routinely count themselves among the "top ten.") At the first faculty meeting I attended, two grown men broke into tears during an argument over their parking spaces, which had been moved to a different floor in the same garage. This is the biosphere from which Ms. Kagan's reputation as a great conciliator emanates. I suppose there's an argument that a "diverse" range of experience should encompass this sort of thing, but I can't claim that it has added much to my effectiveness in the outside world.

I simply have one question: If Bush 43, or a hypothetical President McCain/Huckabee/whoever, had nominated a person, any person (oh, the heck with this, let's really stretch the boundaries of imagination--an African-American woman) with basically identical qualifications but a differing political slant, what would the reaction be among Democrats and the "left"?

She may not have been a judge, but she is a product of the exact same academia that produced the other justices and the policy wonks that habituate Washington's insular "bubble" and ignore the rest of the nation's reality.

Kagan should not be questioned on her experience or her qualifications. Rather, she rightfully should be challenged on remarks that she has made over time that call into question her acceptance of the Constitution, the supreme and fundamental letter of the law in this nation.

Two words: Earl Warren.

"I want someone who is painfully, embarrassingly smarter and better than I am. We have that in President Obama, and in his new nominee."

Have you seen the characters Leonard and Sheldon in the TV show "The Big Bang Theory"? They are examples of two characters that are "painfully, embarrassingly smarter" than you or I. They are also painfully, embarrassingly dysfunctional and inept in real-life and social settings.

Occasionally, some academics demonstrate an appalling "lack of connect" to what most of us call the "real world." We have no reason--yet revealed--to suspect that Kagan fits that profile in any way, but there has to be more to a justice than just "smart."

Understanding agressively intelligent and capable women, it appears that Ms. Kagan has the requisite intellectual heft required to do the job. The drawback from her lack of experience on the bench, quite frankly, is manufactured. She was nominated, so clearly she was capable of handling the responsibilities of the job. The fact she never reached it is less her doing than politics.

Without pandering to ageism, Ms. Kagan is of an age where her many years of experience have molded and informed her ideology extensively. It permits her the ability to review a thing and determine a multifaceted approach to resolving whatever issue or impediment stands in the way of progress. Every woman obtains that level of practical application sooner or later. I'd much rather see her employ her skills on behalf of the SCOTUS than dither in some anonymous administration job.

Unless all this nattering results in her withdrawing from the nomination because she refuses to be politically abused, she should be confirmed.

More than half of the 111 justices to come before her, including two of the last three Chief Justices (prior to Roberts) had never been judges. Who better to interpret the Constitution and the laws of the land than someone who has been teaching it to others. By teaching a subject you get a much deeper look at what it all really means.

I want it noted that this form represents the narrow views of the liberal and conservative Northeastern elite. What I am going to ask all of you to remember is the reaction of Western football fans over how invitations to the championship bowls were handled. Remember the anger, frustration, the calls for conferences to leave the BCS? Now, take a look at the Supreme Court. These aren't just East Coasters, they are Northeasterners! They have blinders on when it comes to Western concerns. They haven't got the slightest idea of how we think about everything from illegal immigrants to water to guns to public lands management. Moreover, this court is 1/3 Jewish and 2/3 Catholic when well over half of the country is Protestant -- although that sort of tilt seems to reflective of the Northeast cultural elite that is represented on this court. This nominee should be reject. Rejected not over some petty political squabble, but because she amounts to the continued dictatorship by East Coast biases that do not reflect the judgements, concerns, or beliefs of the vast majority of this country. We need a WESTERN Supreme Court Justice, and not some looney Californian, someone from Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Missouri, Washington State.

Kagan was nominated in 1999 for an open position on a US Appeals Court. The Senate Judiciary Committee, at that time controlled by Republicans, refused to hold hearings and blocked judicial appointments. Now those same Republicans are criticizing the fact that she has no judicial experience. Explain yourself Senator Hatch. The GOP continues to be the Party of No, and the Party of Obstructionism.

I think Ms. Kagan has a very good background in the workings of appellate courts and the Supreme Court from three of her jobs. She has been the Solicitor General for more than a year. In that position, she has been the chief appellate advocate for the United States, which is involved in a very large portion of the Supreme Court's docket, representing the United States both as a party and as an amicus. Early in her career, she served for one year as the law clerk to Chief Judge Mikva in the D.C. Circuit and a law clerk to Justice Marshall in the Supreme Court. This is experience of great value.

Judge Mikva must have liked her work, because he hired her when he resigned his judicial position to become counsel to President Clinton.

I think prior judicial experience is overrated as a qualification for the Supreme Court. Supreme Court justices serve a far different role in our system than circuit court judges. Packing the court with former circuit judges also makes the Supreme Court give far greater weight to the institutional interests of the lower federal courts than those interests should have.

The principal "benefit" of choosing circuit judges is that it gives a President a fairly reliable indicator of how the judge will vote on cases when he becomes a Justice. Roberts, Scalia, Alito, and Thomas were appointed in large part due to their track records as being reliably conservative as opposed to other things in their backgrounds. All four are so driven by their conservative ideologies that we must wonder whether they received any "benefit" from their service as circuit judges.

Two words: John Marshall.

mibrooks27...

While I understand and can appreciate your concern over intellectual bias on the SCOTUS, your blatant bigotry towards easterners reduces your points to petty geographic scabble. I caution you on your western bias; many of the "California loonies" you refer to are Americans migrated from places east. Many native born Californians have left the state by now.

The point really isn't whether or not the current SCOTUS can and will judiciously lead the court with their New England bias; but will they uphold the Constitution for all of America? SCOTUS is not a regional conflict court after all; it is the final arbitor of regional conflict.

If the law of the land is truly the law of the land, it makes no difference where the justices hail from. It's about how they're educated.

It makes no difference to me and many other intelligent Americans where this nominee is from, only that her qualifications with regards to her understanding and application of Constitutional Law are exemplary. Can the woman do the job we will hire her to do?

East or West, her knowledge of the Constitution -the highest law of the land- is the law of one nation and no amount of geographical localization is going to change that. Worried about laws west? Look after those in your own state's lower courts. You can vote for your own judges in most general elections.

Leave the laws of the nation to those that are most capable of adroitly defending the Constitution for the whole of the nation. Ms. Kagan is well qualified to do just that.

mibrooks27...

While I understand and can appreciate your concern over intellectual bias on the SCOTUS, your blatant bigotry towards easterners reduces your points to petty geographic scabble. I caution you on your western bias; many of the "California loonies" you refer to are Americans migrated from places east. Many native born Californians have left the state by now.

The point really isn't whether or not the current SCOTUS can and will judiciously lead the court with their New England bias; but will they uphold the Constitution for all of America? SCOTUS is not a regional conflict court after all; it is the final arbitor of regional conflict.

If the law of the land is truly the law of the land, it makes no difference where the justices hail from. It's about how they're educated.

It makes no difference to me and many other intelligent Americans where this nominee is from, only that her qualifications with regards to her understanding and application of Constitutional Law are exemplary. Can the woman do the job we will hire her to do?

East or West, her knowledge of the Constitution -the highest law of the land- is the law of one nation and no amount of geographical localization is going to change that. Worried about laws west? Look after those in your own state's lower courts. You can vote for your own judges in most general elections.

Leave the laws of the nation to those that are most capable of adroitly defending the Constitution for the whole of the nation. Ms. Kagan is well qualified to do just that.