|
If you are looking to defeat a Supreme Court nominee, there are two basic paths.
The first is to quickly assemble a coherent, easily understandable, negative narrative around the nominee that is repeated by numerous commentators in both parties. This happened to Harriet Miers, when both Democrats and Republicans attacked her as a "crony" nominee. Simple, straightforward, bi-partisan. There are only about 48 hours before the big splash about the nomination dies down, and so if you fail to get this narrative to stick quickly, thus putting the administration on the defensive, then you only have one more way of defeating the nominee...
...which is to find some sort of shocking quote or revelation about the nominee that restarts the news cycle on the nomination, and puts the administration on the defensive. While this may yet happen, it now seems that this Hail Mary approach (which the right-wing tried against Sotomayor with the "wise Latina" line) is the only way that Kagan's nomination will be defeated. This is because, in the opening salvo, opposition to Kagan is scattered and disorganized, and no coherent, negative narrative is forming against her.
A strategy of throwing a bunch of random bits of oppo against the wall, without any coordinated action, and hoping that something miraculously sticks, simply isn't going to work. The news cycle on Kagan will wind down in about 24 hours, or less, and these attacks will just disappear into the ether. And yet, this sort of random, disorganized attack is exactly what is happening. Here is a quick sample:
- Republicans in the Senate Probably the most effective line of attack on Kagan would have been her lack of courtroom experience. Indeed, this is the most common argument that is popping up, but it is still a far cry from becoming a clear narrative. John Kyl criticized Kagan for this, but both Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn did not emphasize this in their statements on Kagan. McConnell praised Kagan for having a first-rate intellect, while Cornyn targeted Kagan for not being "ordinary" enough.
- The RNC In an attack that will please their base but have no impact on Kagan among the broader public, the RNC is emphasizing that Kagan praised civil rights pioneer and former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
- The theocratic right Right-wing Christian groups are attacking Kagan for being pro-homosexual and anti-military. This is an entirely different attack than the one coming from the Republican Party and Republican Senators, and it is also boilerplate attacks they make against all Democrats.
- Right-wing media Finally, right wing media is focusing on an entirely different line of attack, and a boilerplate one at that. For example, Rush Limbaugh calls Kagan an "academic elitist radical," because I guess he just wanted to phone it in today.
This lack of coherency isn't going to work. You can't win a news cycle like this just by throwing a bunch of random attacks against the wall. This goes for the progressive opponents of Kagan, too. If they wanted to stop this nomination in its tracks, they needed to get on board with one of these lines of attacks. While there have been some right-wing grumblings about progressive concerns such as Kagan's diversity record and ties to Goldman Sachs, really the best opportunity was probably her lack of experience and a repeat of the Miers "crony" argument.
At this point, it is clear that isn't going to happen. There seem to be a lot of concerns about Kagan, but pretty much none of them are receiving any significant media play because her opponents can't seem to agree on what to say. As such, she is pretty much sailing through the news cycle, coming off as an smart, qualified, trailblazing, non-political pick. That is exactly what an administration wants the news cycle to be when they make a Supreme Court Justice nomination, and that seems to be pretty much what the Obama administration is getting with Kagan. This "fight" is already almost over.
|
STATE BLOGS
