Conspicuously absent from Senator Jeff Sessions‘ opening statement/bill of grievances with Solicitor General Elena Kagan? Any reference to the Islamic Studies Program or the Islamic Finance Project at Harvard Law as evidence that Kagan partnered with sinister foreign forces to implement Sharia at Harvard University.
Maybe after he saw Frank Gaffney‘s op-ed, Sessions realized that the whole idea wasn’t just stupid, but genuinely nuts.
As a side note, if today is any indication the hearings are likely to be as tame as most political prognosticators predicted. Apart from Sessions and a few others, the appetite for a knock down drag out fight just isn’t there. Sessions cited Kagan’s opposition to Senator Lindsey Graham‘s attempt to block detainees’ access to federal courts. Graham for his part, didn’t even mention it, and with an oddly reassuring tone, told Kagan that “The fact that you embrace liberal policies and have grown up in a liberal household is something we need to talk about, but that’s just America…It’s okay to be liberal. It’s okay to be conservative.”
When was the last time you heard a Republican say something like that? Graham seemed more comfortable with Kagan being a liberal than many of the Democrats on the committee, who chose to refer to her repeatedly as a “moderate”.