Sorry, guys, but being a law dean who treated conservative scholars with cordiality and fairness doesn’t mean you’ll either 1) be anything but a predictably liberal judge yourself, or 2) show any particular unusual persuasiveness with conservative colleagues on the bench. Jim Copland invites us to consider the example of Guido Calabresi...
Well, yes, but... It seems to me that the operative question here is "compared to what"? Obama is highly unlikely to ever have a better position for a SCOTUS nomination than he does now. His senate majority likely will never be this big again, for one thing. If I'd been him, I would have gone as liberal as I thought I could get away with. Maybe, gawd help us, somebody like Harold Koh, who gives me nightmares, but whose window of opportunity probably is now closed.
Compared to the alternatives, Kagan strikes me as one of the -- of not the -- least objectionable. Getting her now, when Obama is strongest, looks like a conservative win to me.
PS: Speaking of Koh, I'm reminded that Norman Ornstein never bothered replying to (let alone apologizing for) his shoddy attack on my posts about Koh. Putz.
