Glenn Greenwald: defending their beliefs is the “last thing” Dems want to do

I honestly don’t know enough about Elena Kagan to form a real opinion about her nomination. Of the probable nominees, I don’t think he could have done better than Diane Wood. Greenwald has been a vocal critic of Elena Kagan, and while I can’t necessarily agree with him on that, I definitely agree on his analysis of Democratic cowardice on SCOTUS picks (dating back to Clinton).

Clipped from www.salon.com

The Right appoints people like John Roberts and Sam Alito, with long and clear records of what they believe because they’re eager to publicly defend their judicial philosophy and have the Court reflect their values. Beltway Democrats do the opposite: the last thing they want is to defend what progressives have always claimed is their worldview, either because they fear the debate or because they don’t really believe those things, so the path that enables them to avoid confrontation of ideas is always the most attractive, even if it risks moving the Court to the Right.

Why would the American public possibly embrace a set of beliefs when even its leading advocates are unwilling to publicly defend them and instead seek to avoid that debate at every turn?