POLITICO'S Arena contributors discuss their reactions to the selection of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. ...

Andres Martinez, director, Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program, New America Foundation Typically, Supreme Court confirmation battles tend to blow minor foibles or differences out of proportion as the opposition party seeks to portray a nominee as beyond the mainstream. But in the case of Elena Kagan, Republicans will be justified to raise serious concerns about the nominee’s ill-advised, counterproductive and undemocratic decision to bar military recruiters from the Harvard Law School campus. The Supreme Court rightly slapped down the law school’s ban — in a unanimous decision.

Otherwise, Kagan seems an impressive choice. And her actions on the recruiting issue may have been an effort to get along and go along with fellow academics divorced from political reality rather than an indicator of her jurisprudential tendencies. ...