WashPost
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
President Obama's announcement in the East Room that he had nominated Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court was perfectly boring -- and that's what makes her such a bold choice.
A year ago in that same room, there was a festive atmosphere as Obama stood next to Sonia Sotomayor, the sharp-tongued jurist with the up-from-poverty life story who would become the first Hispanic justice.
On Monday morning, by contrast, there was a sea of mostly white faces and gray hair as Obama stood next to a candidate not from the Bronx but from the Upper West Side. Kagan wasn't the first woman to be named to the high court. She wasn't the first Jew. She wasn't even the first Jewish woman. She was just another former Supreme Court clerk and product of the Ivy League (Princeton, Harvard Law, dean of Harvard Law).
Nominating Kagan, therefore, required some courage. Obama defied those populists who said he should reach beyond the Eastern elite for somebody with more "real world" experience. He defied liberal interest groups -- his own base -- that favored a more ideological liberal, such as Judge Diane Wood. Instead, he chose brain over bio, sending to the Senate neither a compelling American story nor a liberal warrior but a superbly skilled, non-ideological builder of bridges.
(More here.)
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