As solicitor general, Kagan serves as the nation’s top lawyer arguing cases before the high court. Yet Kagan is highly unusual in one way – she has never been a judge.
As a result, there is very little documentation about her ideas and beliefs. There is, however, her earlier writing. Kagan spent her senior year conducting research for her thesis on the history of the socialist movement, which was titled “To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900–1933.” Her thesis has been criticized by her opponents for revealing sympathies with the Socialist Party and became a source of controversy when she was a potential nominee for Associate Justice David Souter’s seat on the Supreme Court last spring — a position which instead went to Sonia Sotomayor ’76 — and when she was nominated for her current position of solicitor general in January 2009.
She called the story of the socialist movement’s demise “a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America ... In unity lies their only hope.”
Kagan said in her thesis acknowledgements that her brother’s “involvement in radical causes led me to explore the history of American radicalism in the hope of clarifying my own political ideas.”
Ben Domenech suggested a few weeks ago on a CBS blog that Kagan would be the first openly gay justice if confirmed, sparking backlash from liberals and a White House denial, its first public defense of a potential candidate during the current nomination process. CBS pulled the post and Domenech apologized, but he explained on his own website that he understood that Kagan was known to be gay in certain circles.
An old friend of Obama, she wrote: Confirmation Messes, Old and New a review of a book about the judicial confirmation process, cf. Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local-beat/Kagan-and-Obama-Go-Way-Back-93267019.html#ixzz0nYMxWJSH.
Liberals Accused of 'whitewash' of plagiarism scandal involving two Harvard law profs.
“Granted that one city is not a nation, the experience of New York may yet suggest a new solution to this critical problem.” The solution may still be to have sympathy for socialism which is an intriguing statement.
Then, on p. 130, Kagan states: “The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America….”
“Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of sectarianism; it is easier, after all to fight one’s fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful foe. Yet if history of Local New York shows anything, it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope.”
Kagan wants hope, unity, and to change America to socialism.
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