You ask. I don't tell.

Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan started the process of being confirmed to the United States Supreme Court. If confirmed she will become the third woman on the current court. In the first day, she sat through each member of the committee’s opening speeches. Late in the afternoon she gave her own opening statement.

Tomorrow Kagan will face questioning from the committee. She more than likely will have to face tough questions from ranking Republican Jeff Sessions who has already expressed that he feels she has less judicial experience than any nominee in 50 years. Kagan will also have to defend her actions as Dean of the Harvard Law School when she attempted to ban military recruiters due to her interpretation of a Harvard Policy that disallows groups that do not treat all people equally. She did this based on the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy which she called “a moral injustice of the first order.”

She will also have to defend her (perhaps flippant) comment that SCOTUS hearings are a “hollow charade” and “ritual dance.”  The toughest part of doing that will be the fact that she was critical of how little is brought out by the questions. Meanwhile she will more than likely avoid general case questions about things like abortion, gays in the military and gun rights.

In fact, today the Supreme Court struck down a 30 year old handgun ban in Chicago. Kagan will likely have to defer opinion on this case too. She will very plausibly state that she has not read the case or opinions.