Obama Nominee Anti-Military?

President Obama recently announced his pick for Solicitor General. No, this isn’t the person who goes around asking people to buy White House magazines or Girl Scout Cookies, it’s actually a legal post. The Solicitor General supervises and conducts government litigation in the United States Supreme Court. The Solicitor General determines the cases in which Supreme Court review will be sought by the government and the positions the government will take before the Court. What kinds of stances do you think Obama’s nominee, Elena Kagan, will take before the Supreme Court? One need only take a look at her past to figure that out.

While Kagan was a dean at Harvard Law School, she challenged the government over its position to withhold federal funds from colleges that refuse to allow equal access to military recruiters on college campuses as they do private businesses. She was on the side of not allowing military recruiters at the law school as long as they obeyed the LAW that bars gays from openly serving. Let me repeat that: the LAW! This is a law that Congress passed and the military is required to obey, regardless of our personal bias against it.

On the plus side, I truly hope that Kagan hasn’t been providing lip service to Congress in her position that the government is entitled under the laws of war – as I’ve been saying for years – to hold terrorists without trial. In case you missed it, here is the conversation between Kagan and Senator Graham:

“Do you believe we are at war?” Graham asked.

“I do, Senator,” Kagan replied.

Graham cited the example of someone who is not carrying a gun or fighting on a battlefield. “If our intelligence agencies should capture someone in the Philippines that is suspected of financing Al Qaeda worldwide, would you consider that person part of the battlefield?” he asked. He added that he had asked the same question of Holder, who replied he agreed that person was on the battlefield.

“Do you agree with that?” the senator said.

“I do,” Kagan replied.

Graham said that under the law of war, the government can say, “If you’re part of the enemy force, there is no requirement to let them go back to the war and kill our troops. Do you agree that makes sense?”

Kagan replied, “I think it makes sense, and I think you’re correct that that is the law.”

“So America needs to get ready for this proposition that some people are going to be detained as enemy combatants, not criminals,” Graham concluded.

I wonder how the President is going to square this with his beliefs?