Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Monday said President Obama’s choice for the U.S. Supreme Court, Elena Kagan, was not a nominee against whom he would “fight the last mile” to block Senate confirmation.
“She seems like a very well-qualified person and somebody that – certainly not somebody that I’d appoint, but I don’t think she’d be sombody that I would, you know, fight the last mile to try to stop her,” Giuliani told POLITICO at a fundraiser for New York GOP gubernatorial hopeful Rick Lazio.
“I don’t think that she’s that kind of extremist that you would do that,” he added.
Giuliani, a GOP presidential candidate in 2008, spoke hours after Obama introduced Kagan, a New Yorker and former Harvard Law School dean, as his choice.
“I think the biggest issue she’s going to have is the military one..about the ROTC,” he said, referring to her wanting to ban military recruitment when she was Harvard because of the military’s ban on gays serving openly. “I don’t think she’s going to have too many legal issues to deal with, in part because she’s not been a judge” or practicing privately in cases.
“She’s got something the left is worried about, and something the right is worried about – the left is worried about her support for executive power and the right is worried about her on almost every other issue,” Giuliani said, chuckling.
He said while he hasn’t personally studied her record, “I’ve always been a big believer that the president gets to select and then the Senate rejects if the person is really unqualified.
“Because we elect a president, and we expect that he’s going to appoint somebody that fits his basic political philsophy, and she does not seem to me to be an extremist,” he said. “If he’d picked somebody that would be an extremist, then I think that would be much more of a battle.”
Asked whether Obama is drawing from the same rarified Ivy League pool for his picks, Giuliani – who was raised in Brooklyn and Long Island and went to Manhattan College and New York University law school – said it wasn’t fair to blame the Democratic president for that, since the other members of the court all have similar backgrounds.
“Sure, it would be better to have a Supreme Court that had a little more diversity with regard to educational background,” he said, but added , “They may all come from Harvard and Yale, but they seem like eight very different people.”
(Source: Politico)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
9 Responses
How could Giuliani say that? Was he drinking something this morning other than his coffee?
You cant say she doesnt look to be an extremest! she has no prior record, given the fact that obama chose her i’d say is enough proof that she is an extremist
She has not much of a track record other tham much of a similar track that The Obama had … Chicago, Havahd, anti govt, etc. So I look at this like obama female rather than much of anything else.
She is probably as close to the center as you are going to get with Obama as President and the Democrats controlling the Senat. They did win the last election, you know. As left wing liberal Democrats go, she’s a moderate, and doesn’t even foam at the mouth.
Perhaps Rudy could show us something that she wrote so we could see where she stands on important issues. Does she think she can rewrite the Constitution like most people on the left? She is against the military and we know that from what we saw about her.
She is 50 years old. Do you want her ideas on the court for 35 years shaping this country for your children & grandchildren & great grandchildren?? I don’t!
Mark Levin,
She has as much of a track record as Rhenquist had.
6, There are some MAJOR differences including the fact that Rhenquist was not a leftist like she is. Judge Rhenquist also had what to see things he wrote AKA HIS OPINIONS.
Nice try buddy.
Mark,
Your last sentence isn’t written in English, so I’m not sure what you meant. If you’re suggesting there isn’t a siginificant writte record of things Elana Kagan believes, thats ridiculous. If you’re suggesting that we could tell Rhenquist’s views from the judicial opinions he wrote prior to being appointed to the court, I will print all of those opinions in their entirety below so that you can tell us what they teach us about him:
You may have trouble with that, as he wasn’t a judge, so there are no opinions.
#2, The marketing or Kagan is right out of the Obama Deceit Playbook. Obama had not much of a prior record, and they put out the info that he was the editor of the Harvard Law Review..etc. He impressed enough people, coupled with the terrible Bush/Cheney administration’s numerous faults, that America elected him. Once in office, Obama proved to be a liar of the umpth degree and is playing with America like it is his box of toys. We can suspect Kagan, if appointed, would also shock people with out of left field contributions.