[THS] !!!!!! James Petras: Elena Kagan and the Supreme Court

[The Harder Stuff in news and commentary]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25438.htm



Elena Kagan and the Supreme Court:

A Barnyard Smell in Chicago, Harvard and Washington

By James Petras

May 13, 2010 "Information Clearing House" 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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

James Petras has a long history of commitment to social justice, working in particular
with the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement for 11 years. In 1973-76 he was a
member of the Bertrand Russell Tribunal on Repression in Latin America. He writes a
monthly column for the Mexican newspaper, La Jornada, and previously, for the
Spanish daily, El Mundo. He received his B.A. from Boston University and Ph.D. from
the University of California at Berkeley.