Andrew Leonard: Elena Kagan's "Socialist" College Thesis
[Andrew Leonard writes for Salon.com]
Elena Kagan, the nominee for Supreme Court justice who has so successfully managed not to leave a paper trail indicating what she really thinks about anything important, turns out to have written her senior thesis at Princeton on an interesting question: Why did socialism fail to become a major force in the United States?
This has led, predictably, to an uproar on right-wing blogs, where it is being argued with great passion that "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933" is proof that Elena Kagan is herself a living, breathing socialist.
Media Matters promptly responded to the outcry with a set of talking points declaring that just because someone writes a college paper about socialism doesn't automatically mean that she is a socialist. That's certainly true, but I don't think it means we can't learn something about Kagan -- or, better yet, the failure of socialism in the United States -- from reading her paper. If Kagan had chosen to write about why the Confederacy lost the War of Northern Aggression, that would have provided a meaningful insight into her intellectual interests. But she didn't -- she wrote about the abject failure of the Socialist Party to become a significant political force in the United States. Let's take that at face value.
I'm ashamed to say I've only read the introduction, first and last chapters, and conclusion of Kagan's 130-page thesis. But I think I can nonetheless say without fear of contradiction: "To the Final Conflict" is a first-rate piece of work. (Does that make me a socialist? Maybe.) If anyone is actually taking seriously the notion that Kagan is some Harriet Miers-like "mediocrity," her college thesis alone should be enough to quash that nonsense. Kagan proves herself a superb writer who grounds her argument in scrupulous attention to historical detail. She's also tackling an important topic: Why, after a promising start in the early part of the 20th century, did socialism wither away in the United States? If I had been a Princeton professor reviewing her submitted work, I can only imagine that my reaction would have been: This woman is going places....
Read entire article at Salon.com
Elena Kagan, the nominee for Supreme Court justice who has so successfully managed not to leave a paper trail indicating what she really thinks about anything important, turns out to have written her senior thesis at Princeton on an interesting question: Why did socialism fail to become a major force in the United States?
This has led, predictably, to an uproar on right-wing blogs, where it is being argued with great passion that "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933" is proof that Elena Kagan is herself a living, breathing socialist.
Media Matters promptly responded to the outcry with a set of talking points declaring that just because someone writes a college paper about socialism doesn't automatically mean that she is a socialist. That's certainly true, but I don't think it means we can't learn something about Kagan -- or, better yet, the failure of socialism in the United States -- from reading her paper. If Kagan had chosen to write about why the Confederacy lost the War of Northern Aggression, that would have provided a meaningful insight into her intellectual interests. But she didn't -- she wrote about the abject failure of the Socialist Party to become a significant political force in the United States. Let's take that at face value.
I'm ashamed to say I've only read the introduction, first and last chapters, and conclusion of Kagan's 130-page thesis. But I think I can nonetheless say without fear of contradiction: "To the Final Conflict" is a first-rate piece of work. (Does that make me a socialist? Maybe.) If anyone is actually taking seriously the notion that Kagan is some Harriet Miers-like "mediocrity," her college thesis alone should be enough to quash that nonsense. Kagan proves herself a superb writer who grounds her argument in scrupulous attention to historical detail. She's also tackling an important topic: Why, after a promising start in the early part of the 20th century, did socialism wither away in the United States? If I had been a Princeton professor reviewing her submitted work, I can only imagine that my reaction would have been: This woman is going places....