Today’s Senate does not suck as much as the Senate of old. That’s something on which Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan can apparently agree.
In one of the many lighter moments in today’s confirmation hearings, Graham asked Kagan what she thought of the hearings so far, making reference to her widely-cited 1995 book review calling the modern confirmation process “a vapid and hollow charade.”
Kagan has spent a lot of today’s hearing taking fire for the review, which Senators (mostly Republican) have said compels her to give more than the standard non-answer answers to questions about how she’ll rule on specific cases. Kagan has somewhat accepted the criticism, stating that, from the point of view of a nominee, “in some measure, [I] got a bit of the balance off” when it comes to a nominee’s responsibility to answer specific questions about judicial philosophy and the requirement of a future Justice not to prejudge a case that might come before the court.
Check out the video of the exchange between Kagan and Graham, most notable for its usage of the word “suck” in a Senate confirmation hearing:
