Politico Reports Kagan Is Straight, While Daily Show Looks At Her Personal Story
After all the media tip-toeing around the issue of Elena Kagan‘s personal life, Politico gets to the bottom of the story by talking to her friends – and they say she’s straight.
With that question seemingly answered, the Daily Show focused on the rest of the information we don’t know about her.
Politico’s Ben Smith talked to several of Kagan’s friends, some on record (including Eliot Spitzer!), who all described the various dating experiences they recall her having in college and beyond. It leads to admittedly awkward quotes like: “She dated men when we were in law school, we talked about men — who in our class was cute, who she would like to date, all of those things.”
Does this put the story to rest now? Probably. At the very least, Andrew Sullivan sounds convinced.
But onto the rest of the things we don’t know about Elena Kagan – and there are a lot, as detailed by Jon Stewart and the Daily Show last night. After playing a reel of commentators describing her as “a blank slate,” Stewart chimed in. “She’s off the grid, she lives in the shadows, she…is…Darkman!” he said. But then he played the next set of clips, of what people do know about her. It included statements like “she’s very short,” and CNN’s Rick Sanchez asking, “She drink beer?” to a guest.
“She’s a short, chimney-smoking, beer-guzzlin’ poker player,” concluded Stewart. “I’m sorry she’s not Darkman, She’s Danny DeVito.”
He segued the comparisons to Harriet Miers into a larger discussion about the tendency by the left and right to compare Obama administration actions to their Bush administration equivalent. But the lack of knowledge regarding Kagan is likely to be a major storyline throughout the confirmation process, and certainly as she begins to reveal her positions during the hearings.
Here’s the “Release The Kagan” segment:
