Now that the Right's attack on Elena Kagan for not having judicial experience have proven to be a dud, Newsbuster Sarah Knoploh has come up with a creative new litmus test for Supreme Court nominees, suggesting that Kagan is unqualified for the high court because she lacks military experience:

The United States is fighting two wars - in Iraq and Afghanistan - so it's natural that the nation's leaders have a solid understanding of what war is about. But President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court has no wartime experience and if she is confirmed, that would mean no member of the highest court would have served in the military in or near combat.

This is a major shift for a nation with a proud military tradition.

…

The three major broadcast networks have ignored this issue since Obama's May 10 nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court. Kagan does not have any military experience and is considered by some as anti-military. Yet, out of 17 stories on ABC, CBS and NBC since Kagan was named, not one has even mentioned the issue of wartime experience.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that not one of those news reports mentioned the issue of wartime experience for the very simple reason that wartime experience is not, and has not been, an issue when it comes to assessing Supreme Court nominees.

Do you remember anyone complaining that Sam Alito and John Roberts hadn't “served in the military in or near combat”? I sure don't. And, in more than 1,500 words, Knoploh provides exactly zero examples of anyone ever pointing to combat experience, or lack thereof, as a reason to support or oppose any previous nominee.

So, she's making up a standard that hasn't been applied to any nominee in decades, at least -- and lashing out at the media for not applying it to the current nominee. How could they, if it exists only in Knoploh's mind?

That isn't the only thing Knoploh is making up, though. In a desperate bid to portray Kagan as “anti-military,” she writes:

After Clinton's presidency, Kagan became a professor at Harvard Law School and eventually the school's first woman dean. It was in that position that, in defiance of the Solomon Act, she supported not allowing military recruiters on campus because of her opposition to the military's “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy on allowing homosexuals to serve.

Unfortunately, that does not have benefit of being true. Kagan did not “support[] not allowing military recruiters on campus.” It simply didn't happen. Knoploh is lying, or ignorant, or both. So how did Kagan treat the military at Harvard? Marine Corps captain Robert Merrill, a 2008 graduate of Harvard Law School, says Kagan “treated the veterans at Harvard like VIPs, and she was a fervent advocate of our veterans association.”

More Knoploh:

Kagan denied the military the opportunity to recruit some of the nation's brightest young legal minds.

Again: Ignorant, lying, or both. The military was able to recruit at Harvard while Kagan was dean, and Kagan's tenure did not hinder military recruitment of Harvard Law students.

Finally, it's worth noting that given the military's historic refusal to allow women and gays to serve in combat, Knoploh's attempt to create a combat experience litmus test for nominees would make it more difficult for a woman or gay nominee to serve on the court. Whether that is an unintended consequence or Knoploh's real motivation is an open question, though it is worth noting that she doesn't seem to like gay people.