Or, still yet, whether the president has the authority to detain where congress has specifically deprived him of that authority. that is a different question indeed. let s talk about that for a moment because that s something that i had something to do with, and that is expanding the exclusivity portion of the foreign intelligence surveillance act to say that the executive authority may not exceed in statute elena kagan being questioned on an important issue of executive power and how it makes its way into terrorist cases. let s check in at the moment with jeff sessions, the ranking republican on the committee. he s up in our booth. let me start with this simple questions. one of the questions coming in would she be specific. would she meet the kagan standard she set out in academia about nominees being more
She said she had the balance a little bit off when she wrote that back in 1995 and she said she skewed it too much toward saying the answering is appropriate even when you provide some kind of hints about past supreme court decisions and future supreme court decisions. and throughout the morning, as she s had exchanges with members of the senate panel, as they ve tried to press her on some of those issues, she s lived up to the new kagan standard, i think it s fair to say, and not really answering the questions. i want to play you one example of that with dianne feinstein about an hour ago. does the president, in your view, have the authority to detain american citizens without criminal trial if they are suspected of conspiring to aid terrorists or participating in acts of terrorism? now, does your answer depend on whether the individual is arrested in the united states or abroad?
About past cases, you know, to grade cases, because those cases themselves might again come before the court. on second thought the new kagan standard, which is the same as the old supreme court nominee standard. look, that was earlier this morning and throughout the day, the long, long day she had, she lived up to that and there were several occasions where interestingly it was some of her fellow democrats who were frustrated in not getting answers because of that new standard. but she did answer some questions. talking earlier, the gun control issue was actually a perfect example about the fact she said that some of the recent rulings by the supreme court on second amendment, that they were pretty good precedent. the other part about this is there has been something i think since bourque. i mean, this bourque rule where i think democrat or republican, you know, this is going to be the standard, this is how they act, this is how they react to the questions, because when you sa
In academia, she set the kagan standard saying nominees should be a little more candid. i think she invoked the supreme court nominee privilege to not comment on ongoing cases, yet she did make comments. if you listen to her today, she cade when it came to gun rights and the second amendment, she said that s settled law. she said the same thing about a woman s right to choose and abortion rights. essentially, that s settled law. so very rarely have you had a democratic nominee endorse both gun rights and the right to choose in the same hearing and then be told you didn t say anything. karen, you know, the left would like the fact she talked about abortion rights. the left won t like not everybody, the gun right stuff and the executive power and terror trials. she s trying to put herself in the middle. we know a little more about her political views than her judicial views. she doesn t have judicial experience, unlike harriet meier, who was criticized with
Academic writings that the bork hearings were the last best real hearings we had, and that it s become a vapid and hollow charade since. and they re going to talk about that kagan standard. they re going to say, oh, okay, you think they ought to answer some questions, how about answering questions. nchts that was then, this is now, i suspect is what we ll get. donna brazile, we have talked about the line the republicans are likely to take, but the democrats have looked through houses of e-mails, academic writings, and many liberal interest groups, whether on the interest of gun rights, abortion rights, many are concerned, because she has viewed as a pragmatist. she is careful and cautious in most of her political writings in serving in government jobs. and many people say, wait a minute, in justice john paul stevens we had a champion. and she is kind of a blank slate. they went the democrats to press her, as well. of course, democrats want to know as much as they possibly can on her