Look for Senator Leahy to use his opening round to try to preempt Republican lines of criticism. And be ready for some wild distortions and straw-man arguments. Last year, in the Sotomayor hearing, Leahy began his questioning by purporting to quote Sotomayor’s notorious “wise Latina” comment. But he doctored the quote to eliminate the very elements of the comment that rendered it controversial. Maybe he’ll tell us today that Kagan was a strong supporter of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and that she has been a vigorous critic of liberal judicial activism.

Leahy begins by asking Kagan to talk about her parents.

Exchange between Leahy and Kagan on nature of Constitution largely begs critical question whether adaptation to changing circumstances is through political processes and constitutional amendments, on the one hand, or judicial invention of new rights and dilution of old rights, on the other.

Kagan walks away from standard for testimony by Supreme Court nominees that she set forth in her 1995 book review. Says she can’t even discuss whether past Supreme Court cases were rightly decided. She also tries to inflate her 1995 statement about issues that may come before the Court. What she wrote then is that a nominee should not “commit herself to voting a certain way” but should be ready to comment “on particular issues — involving privacy rights, free speech, race and gender discrimination, and so forth — that the Court regularly faces.” She seems to be walking away from the latter proposition.

In discussion of recusal, Kagan’s answer indicates that she played no role on Obamacare issues, advised only on national-security matters.

Straw-man discussion of Solomon Amendment issue. Kagan claims (if I heard her right) that she tried to promote military recruiting.

(During the course of each senator’s round of questioning, I will supplement my post about that round to add any additional running commentary.)