Excerpts from Kagan’s confirmation hearing

The confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has produced exchanges both serious and silly:

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.): “Greg Craig, former chief counsel to President Obama, who’s known you for some time, I understand, said of you, ‘She is largely a progressive in the mode of Obama himself.’ Do you agree with that?”

Elena Kagan: “Well, Sen. Sessions, I’m not quite sure how I would characterize my politics, but one thing I do know is that my politics would be, must be, have to be completely separate from my judging.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.): “Now, I want to just have a little heart-to-heart talk with you, if I might. I come at the subject — “

Kagan: “Just you and me.”

Feinstein: “Just you and me and nobody else.”

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.): “Don’t anybody in the room listen.”

Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.): “So tell us how you are going to help the American people. Should you be confirmed, how are you going to make a difference in their lives?”

Kagan: “Sen. Kohl, I think a judge’s job is just to decide each case. And it’s hard to say exactly how a judge would make a difference in their lives, because you just don’t know which cases are going to come before you.”

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.): “Do you agree with the characterization by some of my colleagues that the current court is too activist in supporting the position of corporations and big business?”

Kagan: “Sen. Kyl, I would not want to characterize the current court in any way. I hope one day to join it.”

Kyl: “And they’ve said you’re not political, right?”

—Times research