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Gop senators say they want to see kagan's memos from her time as domestic policy adviser to clinton. since her public record is, as they put it, so thin. let's turn to msnbc political analyst, huffington post contributor lawrence o'donnell, who supports the kagan nomination. lawrence, good evening. >> good to be here. >> let's bring in thomas jefferson school law professor marjorie cohen, who opposes the nomination. good evening to you. >> good evening, keith. >> the kind of executive power expanded under the bush administration, some continued under the obama administration. in your assessmen...

We get into this guessing game how someone is going to perform as a supreme court justice using little tiny clues of evidence here and there in their background. this is a new game. it is a modern game. we have been wrong at it a lot. i know marjorie is a great fan of justice stevens who is considered the great liberal on the court. he was a nixon judge. richard nixon made him a federal judge and jerry ford made him a supreme court justice. i assume, marjorie, you were opposed to his nomination at the time he was raised to the supreme court? >> i think i was pretty young then so i can't quite ...

An earlier environmental impact statement of the whole gulf of mexico that was done under the bush administration and said, hey, the bushies said it was fine. please approve this. the person at the minerals management service that was supposed to take a close look at it said, well, okay, if the overall plan was approved for the whole gulf and it won't cause serious environmental dangers i will improve this specific one. he basically waved the thing on through last april, and now you see the result. the democrats i was talking to pointed out there is a conflict in what they said in the applicat...

The more authentic debate about whether elena kagan is the correct choice for the supreme court is occurring amongst progressives. we'll stage it next. what the hell is that all about, unquote? senator harkin said that while solicitor general kagan was merely being considered, since the actual nomination is growing, and more specificity from glenn greenwald -- i believe past decade speaks poorly of her. many progressives argue, and i certainly agree, that the bush/cheney governing template was not merely wrong, but spawned a constitution crisis. kagan's silence on such issues has been disput...

Rights are more important than property interests. my philosophy is that everybody has a right to self-determination, other countries, women over their bodies, people about who they're going to marry. those are the kinds of things i would really like to hear her say at the confirmation hearing and she's not going to. as you say, she has been hiding who she is all this time. when bush was overreaching in an unprecedented way law professors all over the country were speaking out, were writing, complaining, objecting. elena kagan was silent. that speaks volumes. >> professor marjorie cohn, from t...