When all else fails, play the "our troops" card

Elena Kagan is so eminently qualified to be a Supreme Court justice that Republicans are floundering to come up with something to make noise about. Their outcry -- that she has had no judicial experience -- died when Justice Antonin Scalia, of all people, came to her defense and said he thought that was a good thing. They already have plenty of former judges on the Court, he said.

Now, in today's AJC, we have their other non-issue, laid out in an op-ed from Alabama's Senator Jeff Sessions, about Kagan's handling of military recruitment at Harvard Law School while she was dean. He accuses her of not supporting our troops, because she limited when and how military recruiters could have access to students. When all else fails, conservatives trot out the "support our troops" card.

Kagan was responding, of course, to the clash of values between the military's need for recruitment on university campuses vs Harvard's non-discrimination policy. And, of course, the military does discriminate against gays and lesbians in their hiring and firing. Civilian corporations with a discrimination policy were treated equally.

Here's a letter I have just sent to the AJC and hope they will print:

"To the Editor:

"My comment addresses only one of Senator Jeff Sessions' several disingenuous assertions about military recruitment at Harvard Law School (Opinion, June 13). He states that Dean Elena Kagan 'used her authority to hinder -- rather than help -- the soldiers who fight and die for our freedoms.'

"Which soldiers, Senator?

"If every single member of the Harvard Law School classes since 1993 had been recruited to join the military, they would not replace the 13,000 gay men and women who were discharged under the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy during that time."

Ralph