Kagan's the Nominee

So Obama's moving the court to the right, replacing Kennedy with the "ideological cipher" that supports giving the executive branch carte blanche.

Ah, well, not much to be done about it now. As Greenwald said:

Our politics is nothing if not tribal, and the duty of Every Good Democrat is now to favor Kagan's confirmation.  Conservatives refused to succumb to those rules and ended up with Sam Alito instead of Harriet Miers, but they had a much different relationship to George Bush than progressives have to Obama (i.e., conservatives -- as they proved several times late in Bush's second term [Miers, immigration, Dubai Ports] -- were willing to oppose their leader whey they disagreed).  The White House knows that progressives will never try to oppose any important Obama initiative, and even if they were inclined, they lack the power to do so (largely because unconditional support guarantees impotence).

Not much to add to that. Conservatives oppose, and get their wish. Progressives acquiesce, and get trampled.  You'd think the latter would have figured it out by now. But if they had, they'd probably still be calling themselves "liberals".