Jim Hightower

Poor Elena Kagan. Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court is getting raked over the coals by Republican politicos – not because of who she is, but because of who she is not.

First, GOP senators were almost faint over the fact that – oh my God! – she's never even been a judge, so how on Earth could she be qualified to sit on the highest bench of all? Uh... your honorable sirs, many of America's most distinguished Supreme Court Justices – for example, John Marshall, Lewis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, and William O. Douglas – never served as judges before joining the Supremes. Also, lets admit that having a non-judge on the court might be a big plus, bringing a needed off-the-bench perspective to those justices who've been judicial lifers.

Well, maybe, grumped Kagan's unyielding opponents, but what about this – did you know she's not a mother? In fact, she has never been married! Uh... your honorables, where in the Constitution or in the rules of the Court does it say you have to be either? Besides, we've had bachelor justices, so what's marriage got to do with it?

Okay, snapped Republican naysayers, but Kagan is not a Protestant. She's a Jew, and we already have two of them on the bench, plus a bunch of Catholics. But no Protestants, so she doesn't fit the demographic America needs. Also, she was dean of the snooty Harvard Law School, rather than at some regular, God-loving, flag-saluting law school out in the heartland. In fact, she's not even from someplace real, like Wasilla, Alaska. She's from New York City, for chirssake, so, as Rush Limbaugh so accurately summed up the situation, she has "no clue how real Americans live."

This is Jim Hightower saying... Of course, what mostly gripes the GOP about Elena Kagan is that she's not a Republican. If she was, they wouldn't be whining about any of this silliness.