IBD: Elena Kagan "looks like an ambitious radical stealthily...grooming herself for the pinnacle of judicial power"

Put it all together and this looks like an ambitious radical stealthily, and for many years, grooming herself for the pinnacle of judicial power. But is this nonjudge, with precious little trial experience even as a lawyer, even qualified?

As the Hot Air blog noted, her appearance before the justices representing the government on the losing side of the recent Citizens United case was an embarrassment. For falsely claiming that for over a century the high court endorsed expenditure limits on political speech by corporations, Kagan was immediately scolded by Justices Scalia and Kennedy.

"We only disapprove of something when somebody asks us to," Scalia reminded Kagan. Kennedy complained that "it doesn't clarify the situation ... to suggest that for 100 years we would have allowed expenditure limitations. ... We've never allowed that."

And furthermore, why another New York City liberal who went to Princeton? Apparently the only difference between Kagan and the president's first nominee, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, is, as he said in announcing her, that Kagan is a fan of the Mets, not the Yankees.

Kagan's undergrad thesis at Princeton — one of the few writings we have by her — was on the history of socialism in New York City. Does that suggest someone in touch with most Americans?