For absurdly spinning Elena Kagan to the right, consider Washington Post editorial writer Eva Rodriguez, who asked in Tuesday's newspaper: “Is Kagan a bleeding heart or right-wing Bushie?” Specifically, Rodriguez argued Kagan took positions “loathed by the left” that would deny the broadest menu of civil liberties to terrorist suspects:
So which Kagan are we getting: the warm and fuzzy defender of Obama's "little guy" or the hard-right ideologue who would have fit right in as a "loyal Bushie"? The truth: Maybe both, maybe neither. We don't know. At least not yet.
The president -- a constitutional scholar -- made the mistake (or perhaps the political calculation) to attribute personally to Kagan the viewpoints of her government client in a few, select cases. Yet few lawyers are ever perfectly in sync with those they represent.
Rodriguez suggested Kagan was a moderate who would draw outrage from liberals if she were a Bush nominee:
Conservatives will likely jump all over Kagan for her Citizens United arguments and others that could be interpreted as left-leaning. Even though many liberals are disturbed by the right-of-center national security positions, they are unlikely to make a big fuss for fear of damaging the president politically. But can you imagine the furor if Kagan had been nominated by a Republican president and had taken these positions in court? The shouts would be deafening.
If that's the case, then shouldn't the media suggest that the Democrats look insincere or don't really believe that these "right-of-center" positions are morally offensive when argued pragmatically by Democrats? But these media outlets also don't want to "make a big fuss for fear of damaging the president politically."
