Today at the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing for Elena Kegan, the GOP contingent pulled a ploy that has gotten much press here and elswhere, attempting to "taint" Kagan's reputation by linking her to the great Supreme Court Justice she once clerked for, Thurgood Marshall. As has been pointed out voluminously in the hours after the hearing, it was very stupid politics. I won't waste anybody's time belaboring that obvious point.
Beyond the insane political calculations they must have made in deciding to trash a true hero of US history, there was (as is ever the case these days) a huge undercurrent of racist pandering in this sad tactical salvo. But one Senator named Hatch, rather than rehash the usual set of code words (you know, the catch prases that allow national pols to intimate their allegiance to the old racist regime - as well as to that faction of the tea party that fully embraces it - without actually saying "nigger" or "kike"), actually tripped right over that old codeword boundary line, into pure Plantation-speak.
Check it:
There's "no doubt he was an activist judge," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said of Marshall on MSNBC Monday. "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."
my emphasis.
So, let's get this straight: Thurgood Marshall stopped making sense when he wasn't being obedient enough to the law. {beat} What the fuck?
What the fuck?
Ok, Senator Hatch, let me give you a history lesson, to put your racist comment in context:
Justice Marshall, apart from being one of the most brilliant lawyers of his time (the SCOTUS that unanimously overturned a century of post-bellum oppression in the South was actually less liberal than the current Court, and Marshall argued that landmark case), Justice Marshall was instrumental in liberating millions of humans from the apartheid system that was, and ever shall be (apparently), the shame of the Southern United States of America. This man represents freedom and courage and morality to millions of Americans of all colors, stripes and creeds.
Justice Marshall, in addition, was a member of the very oppressed minority he helped liberate. So no, he wasn't being obedient to the laws that created that apartheid regime. He was destroying that odious system of laws that allowed the University of Maryland to refuse entrance to him because of his skin color. And he is a hero for the ages because of that implacable disobedience towards injustice (in our society and in our flawed legal system itself), you sanctimonious prig.
Fuck you, Orrin Hatch. And fuck the GOP Elephant you rode in on.