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GOP Attacks Thurgood Marshall In Kagan Hearing

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darthstar6/29/2010 7:23:46 am PDT

re: #429 lawhawk

I’m baffled too- I’m not a fan of Marshall for his activism - and he sometimes saw his role as to promote outcomes favorable to right past wrongs, rather than base it on the law, but the guy was brilliant and a tremendous jurist.

The GOP can’t directly attack Kagan because there’s not much of a paper trail and what there is is insufficient to deny her a seat on the Court. So, they’ll run with this nonsense. It’s bad in the long run.

Moreover, it again highlights the dog and pony show of confirmations and that it really is about the Senators hearing themselves talk and preening before the cameras rather than getting to substantive points about the law and a nominee’s capabilities to do the job.

The big question is “Why attack at all?” Because that’s the way it’s been done since the early 80s? American tradition? Just think about the points the GOP could have scored with the public if their prepared remarks were held simply about the importance of the position, maybe a couple of valid concerns, and there weren’t 35 negative references to Marshall (compared with 14 for Obama). The Democrats would likely still have been prepared to go after the Roberts court, and would have looked petty by comparison. Lost opportunity for the GOP.

But they have to attack. Their base demands it. The hard-core base wants them to inflict as much damage on this administration and the Democrats as possible, regardless of the short or long term effects (not that anything in the public consciousness actually lasts more than a year anymore).