Would just like to say a quick word about the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. As we all know, elections, like ideas, have consequences. And the American people elected Barack Obama to the presidency. Therefore, we will get Supreme Court nominees like Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. We’re maybe lucky we didn’t get worse (in the case of Kagan; I regard Sotomayor as pretty much bottom-of-the-barrel, a paragon of left-wing legal-political correctness). With a big Democratic majority in the Senate, there’s essentially nothing we can do about these nominees. Obama has nominated the type of people you would nominate, if you were Obama. They reflect an Obama attitude toward law and society. And these ladies will be on the Court for a long, long time — longer than the Maine ladies (I love that phrase, for some reason) will be in the Senate.

Conservatives can consider themselves lucky that Sotomayor and Kagan have replaced liberal jurists, not conservative ones.

If the public doesn’t like the Obama sort of Supreme Court nominee, it has two options: elect a conservative majority to the Senate; vote Obama out of office. Both would be fine!

You can always count on me for the elementary or obvious stuff. One more word, concerning what conservative senators should do — do now. They should make all the points they can, as the hearings unfold — get their points of view across. Speak to the public. And then, when it comes time to vote . . . what?

Should conservatives observe the Obama principle? Or should they abide by some other standard? This is the Obama principle, as I see it: When he was in the Senate, he voted against both John Roberts and Samuel Alito. He said, in essence, “They are perfectly well qualified, in the traditional ways. But I’m not a traditional guy. They are conservative. Therefore, in my estimation, they are unfit to serve on the Supreme Court.”

Should conservative senators do that? Should they say, “Sure, so-and-so may be conventionally qualified — she doesn’t drool — but she’s a liberal”? Is tit-for-tat justified? Or should conservatives rise above the Obama standard and say, “No, a president is entitled to his picks, and as long as they’re within some general, American pale — as long as they’re plausible — they’re okay”?

I haven’t totally settled that one, for myself. If I were in the Senate — why is no one urging me to run, why is no one raising funds? — I would.