Because reading Greenwald often leads to sadness...

...I have decided to make it your problem, too.

Glenn Greenwald trying hard not to take an Irish hammer to our knees:

"...As Katyal noted, Kagan relied upon the warning from Alexander Hamilton about a "feeble executive" that was beloved by Bush/Cheney legal theorists, and she hailed "strong, executive vigor."  On the legal spectrum, Kagan clearly sits on the end of strong assertions of executive authority -- perhaps on the far end, almost certainly much further than where Stevens falls.  It's perhaps unsurprising that a President -- such as Barack Obama -- would want someone on the Supreme Court who is quite deferential to executive authority.  But given that so many of the most important legal and Constitutional disputes center on the proper limits of executive power (including ones that remain to be decided from the Bush era), and that Kagan and her rulings will likely long outlast an Obama presidency (i.e., any pro-executive-power decisions she issues will apply to future George Bushes and Dick Cheneys), shouldn't these pro-executive-power views, by themselves, prompt serious reservations (if not outright opposition) among progressives?"

I guess, for me, the problem finds a simple equilibrium, when seen outside its own conditions (echoing Art Silber): anyone interested in attaining the office of the Presidency probably has a lot of bad habits, up to and exceeding the desire to write his name in blood all over the lives of millions make an historical splash of himself. Furthermore, anyone so inclined to claw his way to the top of this corporate-political heap probably has a number of hungry sponsors, in various boardrooms and chains of command.

En bref, the likelihood that we can discover a really bad motherfucker behind the veneer of civility worn by graspers after power approaches 1.

Can we expect much better from those they appoint to shore up the legitimacy of their choices?