merit based promotions...,
2010-05-10 11:59:24
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hot air...,
2010-05-12 18:43:10
i know i am but so am i:
As a comeback to Glenn Greenwald's endlessly repeated and rephrased clear as day argument that Elena Kagan has expressed no positions to speak of on much of anything, Andrew Sullivan goes all "Contra Greenwald" with a quote about how she's a fan of unitary executive power grabs when it comes to regulatory agencies, and not other extra-constitutional powers the Bush Administration seized... maybe. We don't really know since that was the "only significant discussion" on executive power she ever published.
I'm really beginning to feel sorry for Glenn. It's really irritating when somebody makes your case for you and then pretends they won the argument, and that describes just about every response he's received. Sullivan's got a nice little cottage industry of winning arguments against adversaries slightly dumber than himself - they're often his own invention so that can't be helped - but it's fairly pathetic when he's stuffing straw into the shirt of the guy who wins the internets at Ad Nauseum.
And as far as it goes, I read the paper in question and I don't see how one can surmise her position even on executive regulatory power. It's almost entirely descriptive and devoid of judgment. If it was lauding the loss of agency independence to carry out congressional mandates it certainly had the opposite effect on me. Perhaps she's a master of the crypto-dissuasive argument.
update: Sam Smith has a nice collection of clips.
