WaPo: Obama Sees Legal Gravitas In Kagan To Counter Roberts
The Washington Post reports: “Why is President Obama choosing his solicitor general, Elena Kagan, as his second nominee to the U.S Supreme Court? By all accounts, Obama wants someone who can serve as a counterweight to the intellectual heft of Chief Justice John Roberts. Regardless of how strong a liberal Kagan would prove to be, as a former dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan practically defines legal gravitas.”
Obama’s Day Ahead
President Obama will announce the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court at 10 a.m. ET. He will receive the presidential daily briefing at 10:45 a.m. ET. He will meet at 12:05 p.m. ET with the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, and will meet at 1 p.m. ET with senior advisers. He will hold a meeting at 2:30 p.m. ET, to review BP efforts to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. He will meet at 4 p.m. ET with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, and will meet at 4:30 p.m. ET with Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
Biden’s Day Ahead
Vice President Biden does not have any public events scheduled. He will meet in the morning with senior advisers in the White House. Later, he will travel to Wilmington, Delaware.
Karzai Visiting Washington
Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a delegation of his cabinet ministers will arrive today for a four-day visit in Washington. The Associated Press reports: “All sides will try to say as little as possible about the Obama administration’s early ambivalence toward Karzai, which he took as a slight, or Karzai’s recent outbursts against what he called foreign interference.”
Gates: Pentagon Must Restrain Spending
Speaking at the Eisenhower Presidential Library on Saturday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called upon the military to cut overhead and save money. “Given America’s difficult economic circumstances and parlous fiscal condition, military spending on things large and small can and should expect closer, harsher scrutiny,” he said. “The gusher has been turned off, and will stay off for a good period of time.”
Campaign To Remake Senate Begins
Roll Call reports that a group of first-term Democratic Senators have become more active in their efforts to reform the filibuster and other procedural roadblocks in the Senate. “The voters of this country sent 21 new Democratic Senators to Washington, and that group of people are strong and smart and they’re not willing to accept that things have always been done that way,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO).
Congress Opens Oil Spill Probe
The Hill reports that three Congressional committees will hold hearings this week on the BP oil spill, with the company set to face heavy political scrutiny. “BP is under huge pressure to justify their practices and to explain what could have gone wrong to the extent that they know,” said Kenneth Green, an energy expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
Eric Kleefeld
Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.
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