After last summer's Sotomayor circus, the Republicans are back for more--this time starring Elena Kagan in the center ring as the honorary Negro!
Christina Bellantoni for TPM:
Thurgood Marshall Takes Center Stage At Kagan Hearings: Looks like Senate Judiciary Republicans have at least one unified talking point today: Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American to ever serve on the Supreme Court, was an "activist judge." As Elena Kagan kept on her listening face, multiple senators slammed both Marshall's judicial philosophy and her service as his clerk in the late 1980s. Ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) criticized Kagan for having "associated herself with well-known activist judges who have used their power to redefine the meaning of our constitution and have the result of advancing that judge's preferred social policies," citing Marshall as his son, Thurgood Marshall Jr., sat in the audience of the Judiciary Committee hearings.... Marshall['s]... name came up 35 times. President Obama's name was mentioned just 14 times today. Sessions said Kagan's reverence for Marshall "tells us much about the nominee," and he meant that... as an indictment....
"There's no doubt that he was an activist judge," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said on MSNBC today when taking a break from the hearing. Hatch lauded Marshall's role in helping African Americans "be more accepted in society," but criticized his decisions on the court. "Let's admire the man for the great things he did, but let's not walk over and wipe out the things that really didn't make sense as an obedient student of the practice of law," Hatch said.... Here's a key portion of Kyl's statement:
In another case, Ms. Kagan said that the Supreme Court should take the case because "it's even possible that the good guys might win on this issue." I'm concerned about her characterization of one party as the good guys. Too often it sounds to me like Ms. Kagan shares the view of President Obama and Justice Marshall that the Supreme Court exists to advance the agenda of certain classes of litigants. In another case, Ms. Kagan wrote that there is no good reason to place an exclusionary rule before this court, which will doubtlessly only do something horrible with it....
It remains to be seen what, if any, resonance the GOP's strategy of attacking a famed civil rights activist and esteemed Supreme Court jurist will have either with their base or those unconvinced about Kagan's fitness for the court.... Salt Lake Tribune's Thomas Burr caught up with Hatch after the hearings and the senator wasn't sure he would have voted to confirm Marshall. "Well, its hard to say," Hatch told Burr.
