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Well, it didn’t happen again. The newest Supreme Court nominee did not come from (or even spend any time in) rural America. The boys on CNN yesterday afternoon (Gergen and Blitzer) talked about how the Supreme Court would be mightily diverse should the Senate okay Elena Kagan (above), President Obama’s pick. There would be graduates of both Harvard AND Yale law schools with Kagan on board.

It’s easy to see that the Court is now firmly in the hands of those with a limited experience in and about the United States. And it’s not just where the Justices went to school. The Yonder’s Doug Burns asked recently why there isn’t at least one person on the Court from rural America. After all, Burns wrote, 20 percent of the nation’s population lives in a rural community. Shouldn’t at least two justices come from some place more than 50 miles away from I-95?

Apparently not. Elena Kagan is well-qualified, as far as we can tell. But she grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She went to private schools and has spent her 50 years in the narrow confines of elite universities or elite government offices or elite law firms. 

How hard is it to find a qualified Justice from a rural town? We all know rural judges and attorneys with the wit, intellectual depth and good sense needed to make good judges. All they need is someone to nominate them.

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