Following today's announcement of Obama's Supreme Court nominee, the Republican National Committee has moved quickly to attack Elana Kagan's controversial associations with Thurgood Marshall, a radical mid-20th century proponent of women's suffrage and abolition. In a press release, Michael Steele blasted the Solicitor General for openly repeating some of Marshall's most extreme views:
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."
"Does Kagan Still View Constitution ‘As Originally Drafted And Conceived’ As ‘Defective’?" the RNC asked in its research document. "And Does Kagan Still Believe That The Supreme Court's Primary Mission Is To ‘Show A Special Solicitude For The Despised And Disadvantaged’?"
The unsettling extent of Marshall's radicalism only becomes more apparent when presented in their full context:
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 three-fifths each. Women did not gain the right to vote for over a hundred and thirty years.
Supreme Court analysts such as David Duke and the angry ghost of Jefferson Davis have already predicted that Kagan's endorsement of these extreme opinions will immediately leave her nomination on life support. If she even makes it to a confirmation hearing, Republicans and Democrats alike will be unlikely to move forward if she attempts to evade questions on whether she intends to recognize the radical and little known "11th through 27th amendments" secretly passed by communists during the 1990's. On the other hand, public sentiment will quickly turn against Kagan if she openly embraces opposition to slavery and poll taxes, defends a woman's right to vote, and refuses to challenge the legitimacy of the directly elected senators at the hearing.
"The American people simply won't stand for a liberal activist judge who believes I have the right to get paid for my work," said Chairman Steele at an early afternoon press conference, "President Obama, meet your Harriet Miers..."