Video after the jump:

Today’s Kagan files are broken up with headings sure to appeal to GOP lawmakers and aides eagerly awaiting a “smoking gun”-type revelation that could complicate her upcoming confirmation hearings. More than a dozen bundles of files deal with abortion, and another half-dozen touch on gun ownership issues.

But at least one Senate Republican didn’t need to wait for this afternoon’s Kagan documents to draw his own conclusions.

In a morning statement, Judiciary Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said the nominee’s memos from her clerkship under the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall reflect “a leftist philosophy and an approach to the law that seems more concerned with achieving a desired social result than fairly following the Constitution.”

Sessions continued:

Ms. Kagan has never been a judge, and only briefly practiced law—spending far more time as a liberal advocate than a legal practitioner. Given this thin legal resume, her candid memos as a Supreme Court clerk arguably provide some of the best insight into how she would rule as a Supreme Court Justice. These troubling memos have to be carefully examined, and it is now doubly important that the White House fully produce the overdue documents from the Clinton Library in order to shed further light on the philosophy Ms. Kagan would bring to the bench.

It’s enough to make one wonder if Sessions, who requested Kagan’s Clinton-era files two weeks ago, knew what would come just hours after his statement was made. The Alabama Republican has vowed to hold up Kagan’s scheduled June 28 confirmation hearing in the Judiciary panel “unless the files were produced in time for senators to peruse them well in advance,” according to the AP.

In his introductory speech, Obama repeatedly emphasized Kagan’s “independence,” citing her “openness to a broad array of viewpoints” and her effort to court conservatives while serving as dean of Harvard Law School.

Both Kagan and Obama also highlighted Kagan’s connection to everyday people, a characteristic much discussed during the nomination of Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Obama noted that Kagan’s parents, now deceased, were both immigrants to the U.S., and that Kagan long served as an educator and most recently worked to defend “ordinary citizens” in cases before the Supreme Court.

Kagan said her commitment to public service stems from the example set by her parents. Her mother worked as a public school teacher and her father defended tenants as a housing lawyer. “My parents’ lives and their memory remind me every day of the impact public service can have,” Kagan said.

“Thank you for this honor of a lifetime,” Kagan told the president.

The site is called Obama’s Frontrunners, and it features three videos that highlight the main conservative arguments against Solicitor General Elana Kagan and federal appeals court judges Diane Wood and Sonia Sotomayor. Kagan, the site tells us, is anti-military; Wood cracks down on religious freedom; and Sotomayor displays racial favoritism.

The site also features a poll asking viewers, “Which frontrunner is the worst liberal judicial activist?” So far, Kagan’s in the lead with 46.2 percent. Sotomayor follows close behind with 38.5 percent, while Wood comes in at just 15.4 percent.

The characterizations of the candidates are largely in line with those revealed by memoranda obtained by The New York Times, and they provide a good window into the arguments we’re likely to see employed against President Obama’s eventual nominee.

Despite some tough questioning about past experience and legal positions by Republicans — including Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who today castigated Kagan for opposing military recruiting on college campuses; and Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa), who complained that he hasn’t been able to get enough information about Kagan’s views — she is widely expected to be confirmed, as even Specter acknowledged on the Senate floor today.

As TWI’s Kate Klonick has written, Kagan — a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, a former clerk to  Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and now Dean of the Harvard Law School — would be the first female solicitor general in U.S. history.

Kagan is also considered to be a potential future nominee to the Supreme Court.

Though not discussed in the mainstream media nearly as much as the nomination of Attorney General Eric Holder, the confirmation hearing of Kagan and Associate Attorney General-nominee Tom Perrelli was eagerly anticipated in the legal world, and with good reason. Besides likely becoming the first female solicitor general, Kagan — who for the last few years has been the dean of Harvard Law School — has been on just about everyone’s short-list as a possible appointment to the Supreme Court. After the news of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s battle with pancreatic cancer came to light last week, the legal blogosphere lit up with talk about Kagan’s potential sooner-than-expected ascent to the bench.

That’s something the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee were undoubtedly aware of while they questioned Kagan and Perrelli. While some of the minority members, particularly Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), quibbled briefly over Kagan’s lack of experience as a litigator, most seemed in awe of her reputation as not only an incredible legal mind, but also at her heralded skill at brokering discussion between partisan parties.

While Perrelli received his share of questions, the committee’s attention seemed to rest squarely on Kagan. She joked with Arlen Specter (R-Penn.), the committee’s ranking Republican, over some or her past legal writing — going so far as to call one of her own memos “the dumbest thing I’ve ever read,” and saying that the position of Solicitor General, which is sometimes called the “10th seat on the Supreme Court,” is more like being the “37th clerk.”  Both Kagan and Perrelli, like Holder before them, emphasized their commitment to running the Justice Department without politics and righting the course from the last eight years.

Both Kagan and Perrelli still need to respond to some of the senators’ questions in writing, so a committee vote to send the nominations to the full Senate is not expected until sometime next week. The hearing lasted slightly more than two hours — and if speed is an indicator of the committee’s prerogative on these nominees, things are looking very good for the Obama administration.