Heck, most criminal defense attorneys I know have good relationships with prosecutors.  Even Johnnie Cochran left defense work to go be a prosecutor in LA, saying it was his way of becoming "one of the good guys, one of the very top rung.". He then eventually went back to defense work, but you get the point.

[T]he current "confirmation mess" derives not from the role the Senate assumed in evaluating Judge Bork, but from the Senate's subsequent abandonment of that role and function. When the Senate ceases to engage nominees in meaningful discussion of legal issues, the confirmation process takes on an air of vacuity and farce, and the Senate becomes incapable of either properly evaluating nominees or appropriately educating the public. Whatever imperfections may have attended the Bork hearings pale in comparisonwith these recent failures. Out, then, with the new mess and in with the old!

If they are both smart women, who both climbed the ladder, taking increasingly "better" positions, how are they not similar?

I know Miers was made out to be dumb, but I haven't called Miers that at all - I'm not comparing them on the basis of their perceived intelligence, but on their lack of judicial experience and their affinity for making the political moves (there is politics in academia) that served their ambition.

Miers also was perceived as not being devoted enough to conservative principles, and Republicans were not assured she would be a reliable enough vote for those principles; in that regard, is Kagan any different?  Not only do we not know if she is devoted to "progressive" principles, we have no idea what she thinks about those principles.  Are we really ready to claim that she is reliably progressive based on the Harvard ROTC situation?

If conservatives did not think Miers brought enough of what they were looking for to an open seat on the SC, why is it a bad thing if liberals do not think Kagan brings enough of what we were looking for to fill Stevens seat on the Court?

Is the left-wing of an increasingly conservative New Democratic Party ever going to get anything they want from a Democratic president and a majority-Democratic Senate?

Justice Scalia by now has challenged and amused a decade's worth of law professors, which is no small thing if that is your profession; more seriously, the quality and intelligence (even if ultimate wrong-headedness) of much of Justice Scalia's work has instigated a debate that in the long run can only advance legal inquiry. But the bottomline issue in the appointments process must concern the kinds of judicial decisions that will serve the country and, correlatively, the effect the nominee will have on the Court's decisions.

Kagan may be smarter than Miers, and the places she has landed carry more snob appeal, certainly, but what bits of legal and analytical brilliance has she revealed?  Reportedly, even those closest to her are going with the same gut feelings you have about what kind of justice she would be, since even they have no idea where she stands on anything.

From Paul Campos in The New Republic (my bold):

In contrast, Kagan's opinions on these matters remain unknown. A nominee, even one who has never been a judge, doesn't have to be a graphomaniac, but Kagan's publications consist largely of cautious descriptions and categorizations of current legal doctrines. And, quite self-consciously, they lack almost any critical component. For example, the thesis of Kagan's 1996 article "Private Speech, Public Purpose" in the University of Chicago Law Review is that the Supreme Court's First Amendment doctrine "constitutes a highly, but necessarily, complex scheme for ascertaining the governmental purposes underlying regulations of speech." She flatly refuses to assert whether this scheme correctly interprets the First Amendment or whether it is a good method for regulating speech. "I have never proposed to show," Kagan notes, "that the most sensible system of free expression would focus on issues of governmental motive to the extent our system does ... I leave for another day the question whether our doctrine, in attempting to discover improper motive, has neglected too much else of importance."

Similarly, Kagan's 2001 article "Presidential Administration," published in the Harvard Law Review, describes how presidential oversight of federal administrative agency decision-making increased significantly during both the Reagan and Clinton administrations. Yet the article is focused almost solely on outlines of the administrative process, rather than its substance, thus sidestepping almost all potential political controversy. Kagan reaches the unobjectionable conclusion that vigorous presidential oversight is desirable to the extent that it increases the political accountability of administrative agencies and furthers regulatory effectiveness. (That Kagan's academic writings tell us so little about what we want to know when evaluating a Supreme Court nominee is especially problematic given that she hasn't published for a general audience; we can't find evidence of her views in the mainstream media, either.)

And yet, despite her largely blank record of opinion, Kagan's candidacy for the High Court has provoked almost ecstatic enthusiasm from various current and former colleagues on both sides of the political aisle. She has been praised for her "brilliance," for her "many remarkable qualities," and for being "scrupulously fair-minded" to people of various political views. Yet no one, not even her biggest admirers, can offer any real evidence for what sort of judge she would make, or which side of major legal issues she would fall on.

Why the extreme circumspection about her beliefs?  Do we believe she doesn't have any opinions, or do we think she's kept her mouth shut so as not to get in the way of her ambition?

And here's an interesting meta take from Glenn (my bold):

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?  Hence:  Obama chooses an individual with very few stated beliefs who makes the Right quite comfortable (even as they go through the motions of opposing her).  

I hope your gut is right.  I hope that when she sits at the hearings, she realizes her confirmation is all but assured, and she wows us with heretofore unknown opinions that will make us all sigh with relief at her obvious liberal leanings.

She so gave money to Democrats in the 1980s, including to the Senate campaigns of Lloyd Bentsen and the 1988 presidential campaign of Al Gore.

She's written very little on legal issues.  In the Paul Campos article I linked to and excerpted, he says (my bold):

Kagan's publications consist largely of cautious descriptions and categorizations of current legal doctrines. And, quite self-consciously, they lack almost any critical component.  For example, the thesis of Kagan's 1996 article "Private Speech, Public Purpose" in the University of Chicago Law Review is that the Supreme Court's First Amendment doctrine "constitutes a highly, but necessarily, complex scheme for ascertaining the governmental purposes underlying regulations of speech."  She flatly refuses to assert whether this scheme correctly interprets the First Amendment or whether it is a good method for regulating speech.

She's not only never sat on any court, it wasn't until she took in the position as Solicitor General that she ever made an appearance in a courtroom; from the accounts I've read, she did a terrible job arguing the Obama administration's position in the Citizens United case.  I think I'd like the next SC Justice to be able to make good legal arguments, but maybe, in this new move to mediocrity, that's asking too much.

Marcy Wheeler's take on Kagan's nomination?  

I've thought of some bright sides regarding the news that Elena Kagan is Obama's pick to replace Stevens:

     *   If ever SCOTUS needs money, Elena Kagan is a great fundrasier!

     *   Imagine how it'll make Republican heads explode when they realize Hamdan lawyer Neal Katyal may be Acting Solicitor General.

     *   Given that Republicans will try to oppose Kagan on perceived sexual orientation, it'll make potential gay bashing of Vaughn Walker over the Prop 8 trial much less effective and-assuming Kagan is confirmed-potentially counter-productive for the haters.

     *   Next time someone has to defend the material support statute before SCOTUS, she probably won't go so far as saying even lawyers who defend those accused of terrorist related crimes materially support terrorism.

     *   Girls. Three of them. On SCOTUS. Just two more to go and we'll have our fair share.

Kagan is more of a politician than a jurist, she likely represents a safe vote for continuation of the policies she has been advocating as SG - if you like those policies, I guess she's a good pick.

I see her as very much in the Obama model, but as Glenn says: (my bold)

It's anything but surprising that President Obama has chosen Elena Kagan to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court.  Nothing is a better fit for this White House than a blank slate, institution-loyal, seemingly principle-free careerist who spent the last 15 months as the Obama administration's lawyer vigorously defending every one of his assertions of extremely broad executive authority.  The Obama administration is filled to the brim with exactly such individuals -- as is reflected by its actions and policies -- and this is just one more to add to the pile.  The fact that she'll be replacing someone like John Paul Stevens and likely sitting on the Supreme Court for the next three decades or so makes it much more consequential than most, but it is not a departure from the standard Obama approach.