I realize that when liberal Democrats use the word ‘racist’ to characterize messages like these at Tea Party rallies, it’s called ‘pulling the race card,’ but when conservative white Southern senators grill Elena Kagan about her association with the dangerous “outcome-oriented” judicial activism of Thurgood Marshall — a civil rights giant who successfully argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court and was the first African-American to serve on that court — they are simply expressing ‘concern for Ms. Kagan’s ‘understanding of Constitutional principles.’ Nevertheless, some commentators — like Sherrilyn Ifill at TheRoot.com — argue that, really, they are pulling the race card.
Here, Al Franken, with extraordinary skill and intelligence, uses Kagan’s citing, earlier in the hearings, of the three elements present in court rulings that do NOT constitute ‘legislating from the bench’, to convict Republicans on their repeated, consistent support for decisions that are glaring examples of judicial activism (via Blue Texan at Firedoglake).
PAST CONTRIBUTOR.