Republicans unlikely to filibuster Kagan

>> investors rule.

>>> do you think there is any chance that republicans will try to filibuster this nomination?

>> i don't think so, bob. the filibuster should be relegated to the extreme circumstance and i don't think elena kagan represented that.

>> john kyl yesterday, so despite a heavy dose of criticism, kyl conceded that republicans are not likely to filibuster her nomination. that as the white house agreed to release two thesis she wrote as a student. so you've been up all night reading her master's dissertation, what have you been reading?

>> her princeton thesis has to do with the history of socialism in new york, and why it didn't catch on the way it did in other countries. pretty standard for a college thesis.

>> and some of the conservatives who are out to find something thought they would find she is a socialist. there's a dedication to her parents and brother, but clearly, she's looking at the history and early decades of the 20th century of socialism in new york.

>> on balance, it's a pretty sympathetic account and she seems to be looking at why there was no unity in the movement. i don't think with 30 years time having past, that she was committed to that cause and today, i'm not sure if it's terribly inciteful.

>> in fact, there's some criticism of her failure to be in more support of affirmative action , civil rights positions. where does the civil rights community and more liberal left progressive community stand on her as much as she's taking heat from the right?

>> much of the main lined groups have come out for her or said positive things for her. the naacp unanimously endorsed her. sometimes you can get a few people on the record to talk about some concern that she doesn't have any academic writings on these subjects, hasn't been a judge, so there are no opinions to look at and she doesn't have the background like sonia sotomayor does, sort of a classic civil rights organization or even justice ginsburg had done with the women's rights project. there's a little nervousness, you couple that with things we see in the clinton library papers and that has a few people jittery on where she comes down on affirmative action .

>> chuck schumer was asked about this on "meet the press."

>> doesn't have judicial experien experience.

>> but she has a lot of practice kl experience. she's hardly a blank slate . you'll look at her writings, she wrote many articles as a professor. there will be plenty of information about her and this idea she has to be a junlg, some of our greatest justices have no judicial experience.

>> on top of that, on the weekend chatter, there was newt gingrich and this sounds to me to be a complete distortion of what she did on the whole issue of don't ask, don't tell, but this is newt gingrich on fox sunday.

>> we're in two wars and i see no reason why you would appoint an antimilitary supreme court justice or why the senate would confirm. and for her to single out the military was an extraordinarily myopic position.

>> what is newt up to?

>> i don't think it's really accurate as you say, to say she single led out the military. he may be saying why did she take this out on the military -- creating the don't ask don't tell policy, but there certainly is a blanket policy and has been since the late '70s at harvard, not to admit people to campus who didn't comply with the policies. i think kagan can make the argument quite neutrally and that the military was really the only place around that wasn't complying with it.

>> she inherited that policy from her pred successor and tried to do a work around to get recruiters on the campus to what were considered a more neutral site. it's hard to say that this was an antimilitary posture.

>> that's right. and i think there are other things in her record while she was up there that show she tried to accommodate. people say she led some charge at the supreme court on this issue. i don't think that's true either. harvard didn't actually join the lawsuit as i understand. she just signed her name to an amic amicus brief that the court disagreed with. i don't think she was at the vanguard of people fighting on this issue.

>> thank you very much.