"The reality is that Democrats, including liberals, will accept and push whomever Obama picks."
That's liberal University of California legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, explaining to the Daily Caller that President Barack Obama's failure to nominate a "Scalia of the left" to the Supreme Court won't be a deal breaker for the president's liberal base. Liberal Salon blogger and outspoken Elena Kagan opponent Glenn Greenwald agrees, though he's none too happy with the implications of this approach:
Yesterday on Twitter, Matt Yglesias supplied the rationale for this mentality: "Argument will be simple: Clinton & Obama like and trust [Kagan], and most liberals (myself included) like and trust Clinton & Obama."
Just think about what that means. If the choice is Kagan, you'll have huge numbers of Democrats and progressives running around saying, in essence: "I have no idea what Kagan thinks or believes about virtually anything, and it's quite possible she'll move the Court to the Right, but I support her nomination and think Obama made a great choice." In other words, according to Chemerinksy and Yglesias, progressives will view Obama's choice as a good one by virtue of the fact that it's Obama choice. Isn't that a pure embodiment of mindless tribalism and authoritarianism?
