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Elena Kagan's confirmation hearing continues today

On the surface of it liberals and progressive Democrats should love the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court—she stood her ground against the U.S. military in protesting the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy by keeping military recruiters out of Harvard Law School; she’s been critical of Guantanamo Bay went after Congress for writing a bill that would strip courts of their authority to review detention practices; Kagan’s self-professed “legal hero” is Thurgood Marshall, the original lion of the left on the Supreme Court. So surely liberals are thrilled to have Kagan’s predictably left-leaning voice on the Court, right? Not universally: many liberals feel uneasy about a lack of a certifiable paper trail of liberal decisions by Kagan, and more offensively she has been a reliable defender of strong presidential powers in times of war, like those enacted by George W. Bush for eight years. What is the liberal case against Elena Kagan?

Guest:

Kitty Felde, KPCC’s correspondent in Washington D.C.. She’s been sitting in on the hearings today.

Glenn Greenwald, political writer & blogger at Salon.com; former constitutional law & civil rights litigator in New York; author of “Great American Hypocrites”