It's been reported in SC Lindsey Grahamnesty "is a little light in the loafers." I guess when your favorite drink is a Almond Schnapps it doesn't exactly bolster his image. I would like to suggest he is also a little light in the head. My suggestion....start looking for another line of work. Your gonna need it come November.
By the way, why do they even bother with confirmation hearings? They state their positions at the hearings then do whatever they want (for life) after their appointed.
With one GOP vote, Kagan wins Senate panel’s backing
WASHINGTON — Splitting largely along party lines, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted yesterday to recommend former Harvard Law School dean Elena Kagan for the US Supreme Court.
Kagan’s nomination now heads to a vote by the full Senate, which is expected to confirm her in the next several weeks, before its traditional August summer recess.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, joined the committee’s 12 Democrats in the 13-6 vote in favor of the nomination. Graham, the only Republican on the committee last year who supported the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, said senators should honor the results of presidential elections and not turn confirmation hearings into political tests. Graham said that he disagreed with Kagan on many political issues but that she handled herself well in two days of testimony before the committee, showing knowledge of the law, confidence, and good humor.
“It was not a hard decision,’’ Graham said of his vote to support her.
“She will serve this nation honorably,’’ he said, “and [she] would not have been someone I would have chosen, but the person who did choose, President Obama, I think chose wisely.’’
In May, Obama nominated Kagan, the US solicitor general, to fill the seat of retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Kagan, 50, testified before the committee for about 17 hours last month.
The committee debate yesterday over Kagan’s fitness for the court largely mirrored the public debate over the nomination since the president chose her. Most of the committee’s Republicans portrayed Kagan as an inexperienced liberal partisan who did not make a persuasive case in her testimony that she could separate her political views from a judge’s responsibility to be impartial.
The committee’s ranking Republican, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, attacked Kagan for “a lack of robust legal experience,’’ noting that Kagan, who has never been a judge, worked as a lawyer and policy adviser in the Clinton administration.
“Much of what she’s done has been defined by her experience in politics,’’ said Sessions.
Sessions also cited Kagan’s decision at Harvard to restrict military recruiters on campus because the ban on openly gay soldiers violated the school’s policy on nondiscrimination. Kagan has maintained that the military had adequate access to students through a campus veterans group. “It was not good enough,’’ said Sessions, “and it was not right.’’
Graham, a lawyer in the Air Force Reserve, did not share those concerns. “If I believed she had animosity in her heart about those who wear the uniform, I would easily vote no,’’ he said. “I don’t believe that.’’
Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania joined his Democratic colleagues in backing Kagan, even though he had voted against her nomination to be solicitor general last year. At that time, he was a Republican. Yesterday, he supported Kagan’s nomination, though he said he had “grave concerns’’ about “her failure to answer questions which I think ought to have been answered.’’
Other Democrats on the committee praised Kagan’s varied experience and broad knowledge of the law.
Kagan is expected to receive more GOP support in the full Senate, although no Republican other than Graham has publicly backed her so far.
Democrats attributed that to political considerations.
“Sadly, it appears election year politics may deprive her of the vote total that her nomination deserves,’’ said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.
Politically active conservative groups are pressuring GOP senators to oppose her nomination. The National Rifle Association is urging a no vote or a filibuster to block Kagan outright, saying she is hostile to the Second Amendment right to bear arms, and has warned that it will downgrade supporters in candidate ratings circulated to millions of gun-owning voters.
The Susan B. Anthony List, a group opposed to abortion rights, wrote to senators Monday urging opposition based on Kagan’s actions as a Clinton administration official to resist a broad ban on a procedure opponents call partial-birth abortion.
If confirmed, Kagan would be the fourth woman to serve on the court and her swearing-in would mark the first time that three women have served together on the nine-member Supreme Court.
