Kagan doesn’t need judicial experience to succeed

To the editor:

In Wednesday's letters section, Steven G. Hayes Sr. complained about President Obama nominating someone who has no experience as a judge to be a member of the Supreme Court. I wonder if Mr. Hayes is aware that the last two Supreme Court justices with no prior experience as judges were nominated by Republican presidents.

William Rehnquist was selected by President Nixon, having served as a clerk for a Supreme Court justice and as an assistant attorney general, but with no experience as a judge. He managed to serve many years as an associate Supreme Court justice, moving up to chief justice for the last 11 years of his tenure.

Earl Warren was nominated by President Eisenhower at a time when Mr. Warren was the sitting governor of California. Mr. Warren had served as a district attorney and was elected attorney general of California prior to becoming governor. He was never a judge prior to being selected as chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Elena Kagan was a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and a law professor at the University of Chicago. She has served as an associate White House counsel and was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals by President Clinton, but Sen. Orrin Hatch scheduled no hearing on the nomination. She subsequently became a faculty member at Harvard Law School, where she eventually was named dean. She was nominated by President Obama to be the nation's first female solicitor general and was easily confirmed by the Senate.

Both William Rehnquist and Earl Warren served their nation well. I fully expect Elena Kagan to do the same.

David Adams

Las Vegas

Being polite

To the editor:

Boy, did letter writers Jerry Sturdivant and David L. Sullivan (Tuesday Review-Journal) have it right. Political correctness had nothing to do with the decision to send those students home for wearing the American flag on May 5.

It was downright disrespectful and impolite of them to wear an American flag during this great American holiday of Cinco de Mayo. Oh, it wasn't an American holiday? Well, then it must have been disrespectful of a great Mexican national holiday. Oh, it wasn't a national holiday in Mexico? No. It couldn't have been PC run amok, then.

It's obvious that the stars and stripes mean nothing. We have to be more sensitive to people's feelings about the American flag. It's not as if Americans of all races and creed fought and died for what the American flag symbolizes.

How can we be so unfeeling about other people's feelings? It couldn't be that the students who were upset about the American flag were wrong. Heck, they only live in America.

The students should have worn the hammer and sickle shirt. They'd have been asked to join in all the fun and games of this great holiday, instead of being sent home.

No. This wasn't political correctness. It was about being polite and respectful.

Forrest A. Henry

Las Vegas

Obsolete agencies

To the editor:

You reported that the Rural Electrification Administration was created 75 years ago. It is a fact that all of rural America has been electrified for many decades.

Similarly, the U.S. Geological Survey was created early in the 20th century to map the United States. That mapping was also completed many decades ago.

Additionally, there are countless federal bureaucracies that, like the REA and USGS, have completed their missions but are maintained thanks to special interests willing to bribe politicians with contributions and votes, and to threaten to actively oppose said politicians if they don't get their way.

We need another commission, like the Military Base Closing Commission, that has the power to give Congress a list of facilities and agencies that need to be closed. Congress must then give an up-or-down vote on the entire list.

We also need rules in both branches of Congress that ban individual members from inserting "earmarks" in appropriations bills. On top of those and many other responsible cost-cutting measures, we must elect representatives with the courage to attack wildly inflating entitlement programs, especially the unsupportable ObamaCare.

Dave Fair

Las Vegas

Terror attacks

To the editor:

Regarding the Wednesday column by Patrick Buchanan:

The theory that the three recent terrorist attacks on U.S. soil are the result of U.S. interventions elsewhere is nonsense.

These attackers are all representative of a culture that is notorious for inventing grievances at the drop of a headdress in order to have yet another excuse for one kind of depredation or another. They treat their own kind as targets of opportunity and cannot be expected to magically adopt ethical standards of behavior just because they are in contact with our superior way of life.

And they all had -- or gave indications of having had -- one or more handlers in foreign countries. That means they had to have authorization before undertaking any actions in the United States. After 9/11, nobody got such authorization until a new administration took over in Washington.

Occam's Razor thus concludes that the miscreants were scared silly of what George W. Bush would do if they got out of line. And that same razor tells us that they hold Barack Obama in contempt. They attack appeasers and flee stalwarts.

The Man From Midland was a stalwart. The current incumbent is anything but.

Dave Hanley

Las Vegas