"In literature, cosmetics are very harmful," the Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn said.

The same is true in politics.

So, I think it's important that we get a clear look at what happened two days ago when the president nominated Elena Kagan to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, a stalwart defender of civil liberties on the Supreme Court.

In such matters, no one is more astute or well-informed than George Washington University legal scholar Jonathan Turley, who wrote that President Obama "is now replacing a liberal icon with someone who has testified that she does not believe in core protections for accused individuals in the war on terror."

Turley added: "For liberals, the problem is her 'pragmatic' approach to civil liberties and support for Bush policies. Stevens was the fifth vote in opposing such policies and Kagan could well flip that result."

Last night, on NPR's All Things Considered, former constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald said that at her Senate hearing to be confirmed as solicitor general last year, Kagan "basically embraced numerous right-wing, Bush-Cheney views about the right to hold people as enemy combatants, to hold them indefinitely. She did say that some due process is needed. But the core approach of the Bush-Cheney template for terrorism is something that she seems quite comfortable with."

On the morning of the nomination announcement, some websites published my article "Kagan in Context: Shafting Progressive Values." It was a painful article to write.

I grew up in a household that revered the ACLU and treasured civil liberties. For me, those beliefs have grown stronger over the decades. I can't accept the idea that it is somehow necessary to go along with weakening -- rather than strengthening -- the Supreme Court as a defender of the Bill of Rights.

We should hold Congress members to the same standards that we set for ourselves -- speaking out against any nomination that would move the Supreme Court toward the right and away from basic constitutional protections.

-- Norman Solomon