It's Official: Elena Kagan to be Supreme Court Nominee

Link from Huff Po.

I thought this was going to be an easy nomination. Looks like the RNC is ready to push her on repealing health care reform, her opposition to military recruiters on college campuses due to their support of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" (is there where rumors of her being gay surfaced?) and-get this-her support for African American icon, Thurgood Marshall. Hey, Steele-how's that outreach to African Americans and minorities, going? I mean are they really willing to go there? Will this be another litmus test to weed out "real Republicans"? If so, the party is in real trouble.

So, did everyone think that the Elena Kagan nomination was going to be easy? Ha, no.

Right out of the gate, the Republican National Committee -- you know, that organization headed by Michael Steele, who recently opined that the GOP had not "done a very good job" giving African-Americans a reason to vote Republican -- has released a statement slagging Kagan for her tribute to... uhm -- Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American to serve on the Supreme Court. Smooth move!

In its first memo to reporters since Kagan's nomination to the high court became public, the Republican National Committee highlighted Kagan's tribute to Marshall in a 1993 law review article published shortly after his death.

Kagan quoted from a speech Marshall gave in 1987 in which he said the Constitution as originally conceived and drafted was "defective." She quoted him as saying the Supreme Court's mission was to "show a special solicitude for the despised and the disadvantaged."

...Said Marshall:

I cannot accept this invitation, for I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever "fixed" at the Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly profound. To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. When contemporary Americans cite "The Constitution," they invoke a concept that is vastly different from what the Framers barely began to construct two centuries ago.

For a sense of the evolving nature of the Constitution we need look no further than the first three words of the document's preamble: 'We the People." When the Founding Fathers used this phrase in 1787, they did not have in mind the majority of America's citizens. "We the People" included, in the words of the Framers, "the whole Number of free Persons." United States Constitution, Art. 1, 52 (Sept. 17, 1787). On a matter so basic as the right to vote, for example, Negro slaves were excluded, although they were counted for representational purposes at threefifths each. Women did not gain the right to vote for over a hundred and thirty years. The 19th Amendment (ratified in 1920).

These omissions were intentional. The record of the Framers' debates on the slave question is especially clear: The Southern States acceded to the demands of the New England States for giving Congress broad power to regulate commerce, in exchange for the right to continue the slave trade. The economic interests of the regions coalesced: New Englanders engaged in the "carrying trade" would profit from transporting slaves from Africa as well as goods produced in America by slave labor. The perpetuation of slavery ensured the primary source of wealth in the Southern States.

 

 

I tend to agree with the author of this article which calls her stance on military recruitment "pragmatic" and not radical. To me, "Don't Ask Don't Tell" is a civil rights and moral issue and she expressed that injustice symbolically while still upholding the law. Imagine if your job banned you from revealing you had a wife or girlfriend and threatened to fire you if you spoke the truth about your personal life, the person you choose to love? Imagine all those who risk their lives on the battlefield for our freedoms, with immeasurable talent, competency and bravery, and they are forced to lie on a daily basis simply to keep defending our country. Something is very wrong with that and most experts and military personnel agree that "Don't Ask Don't Tell" should be and will be repealed (and the majority fo the public support that.) Kagan was simply ahead of her time on that knowledge and I admire her for showing such integrity. I compare it to integration of the armed forces. Many people faught against minorities fighting side by side with whites, but now we see how silly that stance was.

Kagan choice and more right wing media stupidity

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Release the Kagan
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Kagan Worship - Dahlia Lithwick
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Kagan Worship - Dahlia Lithwick
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News