- President Obama has nominated Elena Kagan for Justice
of the United States Supreme Court on the basis of an academic publication
record, which might give her a fighting chance for tenure at a first rate
correspondence law school in the Texas Panhandle.
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- A review of her published scholarship after almost two
decades in and out of academia turns up four law review articles, two brief
pieces and several book reviews and in memoriam. There is nothing
even remotely resembling a major legal text or research publication.
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- Her lack-luster academic publication record is only
surpassed by her total lack of any practical experience as a judge: zero
years in adjudication, unless one accepts the line of her exuberant advocates,
who point to Kagan's superb ability in adjudicating among the squabbling
faculty at Harvard Law School when she served as Dean. No doubt Kagan
had been very busy as the greatest fundraising Law School Dean in Harvard's
history ($400 million), which may account for the fact that she never found
time to write a single academic article during her nine year tenure (2001-2009).
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- The criteria for her appointment to the Supreme Court
have little to do with academic performance as it is understood today in
all major universities. Nor does her total inexperience as a judicial
advocate compensate for academic mediocrity.
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- The evidence points to a purely political appointment
based, in part, on social networks and certainly not on her lack of affinity
for the agenda of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Kagan's approval
of indefinite detention of suspects squares with the extremist restrictions
on constitutional freedoms first articulated during the Bush Administration
and subsequently upheld by President Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder.
It is no coincidence that Kagan appointed a notorious Bush torture advocate,
the genial Jack Goldsmith, to the Harvard Law faculty.
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- Elena Kagan's appointment certainly was not based on
"diversity". She will be the third Jew on the Supreme Court
and, together with the six Roman Catholics, will decide the most critical
cases with far-reaching and profound impact on citizens' rights and protections.
For the first time in US history the nation's largest demographic group,
the Protestants (of any hue or gender), will have no representative on
the Court, thereby excluding the descendents, like retiring Justice Stevens,
of the brilliant, strongly secular judicial heritage that formulated the
US Constitution, the Bill of Rights and its amendments.
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- Kagan's nomination to the US Supreme Court is not exceptional
if we consider many of Bush and now Obama's choices of advisers and officials
in top policymaking posts. Many of these officials combined their diplomas
from Ivy League universities with their absolutely disastrous performances
in public office, which no amount of mass media puff pieces could obscure.
These Ivy League mediocrities include the foreign policy advocates for
the destructive and unending wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan and
the leading economic advisers and officials responsible for the current
financial debacles. The names are familiar enough: Wolfowitz, Feith,
Abrams, Levey, Greenspan, Axelrod, Emmanuel, Indyk, Ross, Summers, Rubin,
et al: Prestigious credentials with mediocre, or worse, performances.
What is the basis of their rise? What explains their ascent to the most
influential positions in the US power structure?
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- One hypothesis is nepotism . . . of a certain kind.
Elena Kagan got tenure at the august halls of the University of Chicago
in 1995 on the basis of one substantive article and one brief piece, neither
outstanding. With this underwhelming record of legal scholarship, she
became visiting professorship at the Harvard Law School, published only
two more articles (one in Harvard Law Review) and received tenure. Prima
facie evidence strongly suggests that Kagan's ties to the staunchly Zionist
faculty at both Chicago and Harvard Law Schools (and not her intellectual
prowess) account for her meteoric promotions to tenure, deanship and now
the US Supreme Court, over the heads of hundreds of other highly qualified
candidates with far superior academic publication records and broader practical
judicial experience.
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- The public utterances and political writings of innumerable
Harvard, Princeton, Chicago, Yale, John Hopkins professors, whether it
be on the speculative economy, Israel's Middle East wars, preventative
detention, broad presidential powers and constitutional freedoms are marked
by a singular mediocrity, mendacity and an excess of hot air reeking of
the barnyard.
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- If you do not qualify on the basis of excellent scholarship
or broad-based practical experience, your ethnic tribesman will wax ecstatic
over you as a "wonder colleague", a "superb teacher",
a "brilliant consensus builder" and a "world champion fund
raiser". In other words, if you have the right ethnic connections
and political ambitions, they can adjust the criteria for tenure at the
University of Chicago, the deanship at Harvard Law School and a lifetime
appointment to the US Supreme Court.
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- Elena Kagan joins a long list of key Obama appointees
who have long-standing ties to the pro-Israel power configuration. Like
Barack Obama, Elena Kagan started her legal apprenticeship with the Chicago
Judge Abner Mitva, an ardent Zionist, who hailed the newly elected President
Obama as "America's first Jewish President", probably his soundest
judgment.
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- The issue of the composition of the US Supreme Court
is increasingly crucial for all Americans, who are horrified by Israel's
devastation of Gaza, its threats to launch a nuclear attack on Iran and
its Fifth Column's efforts to drag us into a third war in ten years. With
the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations pressing the
compliant US Congress to declare "anti-Zionism" as a form of
"anti-Semitism" and "opposition to Israel's policies"
as amounting to "support for terrorism", thus criminalizing Americans
critical of Israel, another active pro-Zionist advocate on the Court will
provide a legal cover for the advance of Zionist-dictated authoritarianism
over the American people.
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- Yes, Kagan would be another woman on the Supreme Court.
Yes, she would probably adjudicate conflicts among the judges and strengthen
Obama's police powers. And yes, she would likely favor your indefinite
detention if you support the right of Palestinians to struggle ("terrorism")
against the Israeli occupation . . . especially if you defend America against
Israel's Fifth Column.
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- But remember when you apply for Ivy League law school
appointment or a top judicial post and your CV lacks the requisite publications
or work experience, just ask Judge Abner Mikva or Larry Summers or Rahm
Emmanuel for a recommendation. With such support you will shoot ahead
of the competition. . . because you have the right ethnic connections.
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