Rachel Maddow: Is Elena Kagan The Left’s Harriet Miers?

Yesterday morning Salon’s Glenn Greenwald greeted news of Elena Kagan’s SCOTUS nomination with a scathing post exclaiming that “nothing is a better fit for this White House than a blank slate, institution-loyal, seemingly principle-free careerist who spent the last 15 months as the Obama administration’s lawyer vigorously defending every one of his assertions of extremely broad executive authority.” Greenwald in his opposition to Kagan is (strenuously) voicing issues many on the Left have with President Obama’s pick, namely she has no paper trail and Obama didn’t go Liberal enough.

Last night Rachel Maddow picked up on the theme wondering whether Elena Kagan might be the Left’s Harriet Miers in so far as, will Obama be able to muster the support from his own party to confirm her. All signs point to no on this, and moreover, as Maddow pointed out Kagan has, shall we say, a tad more experience that Miers did. However, if there were more Glenn Greenwald’s in the party she might have something to worry about. Greenwald told Maddow last night her lack of a paper trail is a huge concern.

“She’s a complete blank slate. She’s somebody who’s managed over the course of the last 20 years to avoid taking an position or expressing an opinion on virtually every substantial political and legal question…she has purposely avoided expressing any opinion.”

Video of the segment below. I suspect this is probably the extent of the shouting we are going to hear over Kagan’s lack of record….even Rudy Giuliani thinks she’s not a bad idea. Meanwhile, Greenwald took issue with some latter parts of Maddow’s show, you can read about it here.