Elena Kagan: Obama's safe yet daring Supreme Court pick

Elena Kagan 

Near the end of Mother's Day, it was announced that Elena Kagan, currently the Solicitor General of The United States under President Barack Obama, and Professor of Harvard Law School (on leave), and Dean of same is now Obama's pick to be Supreme Couty justice, replacing the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

Elena Kagan, who would be the third woman on the Supreme Court of The United States if confirmed, and the fourth in history, is also only the second solicitor general to be named to such post after the legendary Justice Thurgood Marshall. Kagan, is a safe pick and yet daring at the same time because Kagan has no bench experience yet is widely regarded as a brilliant legal mind who has argued cases before the Supreme Court.

Kagan is a choice right for this time in Obama's Presidency: in the middle of a hot mid-term election season made all the hotter by economic, ethnic and racial tensions, Obama could not afford another controversy to deal with. Kagan gives her opponents little to attack that would not make them sound sexist or homophobic in the process. Have doubts, let's look at the attacks that have already been issued as evidence.

Michael Roston at True/Slant points to Kagan's status of not having children as a liability:

Certainly there is no requirement that every Justice sitting on the court be a parent. But on a powerful body full of fathers, is it too much to ask that we have one mother as a member of the Supreme Court?

Roston goes on to charge that Kagan can't really understand a case from a mother's point of view because she's not a mother. But nowhere in his blog post does he mention that it's equally important for a someone to be able to understand the plight of women who for various reasons aren't able to have kids.

While I'm the last person to take away the value of motherhood, the reality is that it's not a viable choice for a growing number of women at certain stages of their lives. But even with that, the status of "single woman, no kids" is looked at as if it were some kind of crime, when it's not.

Any Republican attacking Kagan on that basis would immediately feel the impact of the loss of the "single woman, no kids" vote come November. Especially if that groups was angered enough to come out and vote against the GOP politician foolish enough to attack Kagan and them.

Also, Kagan has no record of opinions, which means there's nothing that can be used against her. That's dramatically different that the situation with Justice Sonya Sotomayor, who's statements in past cases were used to gin up White Male anger during her Senate hearings.

Kagan has no such problem.

There's also a rumor that Kagan may be Lesbian. My goodness, I hope she is. While it should not be an issue, it would give the Supreme Court an appropriate diversity of thought that would carry America well into the 21st Century.