Kagan Was Literally Inevitable
by digby
Walter Shapiro offers up a funny (but plausible) reason Obama picked Kagan: she was literally the only possible choice.
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that members of the Supreme Court must be lawyers. But a long line of activist presidents – both Democrats and Republicans – have altered the original intent of the Framers so that a degree from an Eastern elitist law school is now almost a constitutional necessity. If Elena Kagan (Harvard Law ’86) is confirmed for the Court, all nine justices would have received their legal training at Harvard or Yale.
This is one of those moments when you sense that American democracy is more of a rigged game than they taught you back in high school civics classes. Few object to a meritocracy in which people, regardless of family backgrounds, are judged by what they have accomplished in life. But should that binding decision have been made by the admissions committees at two law schools when the applicants were still in their early 20s? Imagine a guidance counselor shouting, “Future Supreme Court justices over here. Everyone else, best of luck with your legal careers – if you don’t aim too high.”
Once the criterion was Harvard, Yale or bust, it was almost inevitable that Elena Kagan, the former dean of guess-what-law-school, would have been tapped for the Supreme Court. This is not an exaggeration. Let’s do the math together.
Kagan is clearly qualified for the job. Nonetheless it’s amusing to see wingnuts and Villagers carrying on about Kagan being unqualified, since the qualifications she’s gathered are the very ones that have have been so clearly demanded for the job.
The question of diversity is always an interesting one. Back in the beginning of the Republic it was all about region, then came religion, then race, ethnicity and gender. And it was common to choose people outside the legal profession until recently. “Diversity” has shifting definition that changes with the nation, which is kind of ironic considering all the legal sturm and drang about whether or not the constitution is a living document: it’s quite clear that the Court itself is a (slowly) evolving institution.
I’m guessing this will be the last Ivy league choice for a while.
.