We began our last trip east with dinner at DC's fine tapas bar Jaleo, with our son Brad, his wife Laura, and our friend John L. Later in the evening we were joined by Elena Kagan. Well, she was seated alone at the table next to ours, anyway. Ms. Kagan will later today in all probability be nominated by Obama to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court.
Alas, there was no opportunity to grill her on judicial activism or theories of constitutional interpretation.
Here, courtesy of the liberal local New York paper, is a compendium of her statements on those and other relevant subjects. Remember, as she would replace the arch-liberal Stevens, the best a constitutional textualist -- one who believes the words of the Constitution must mean today what they meant when ratified -- can hope is that she will be to him who appoints her what David Souter was to George H. W. Bush: an extreme disappointment.
