Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
During the opening statements of the confirmation hearing for Elena Kagan on Monday, Sen. Jon Kyl and other Republicans thought it was a dandy idea to attack a legendary civil rights icon, Justice Thurgood Marshall.
That's just great. Jon Kyl, along with Sen. Lindsey Graham, both lawyers, were chastised by the U.S. Supreme Court in a footnote in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld for misleading the court in an amicus brief submitted by the senators, in which they asserted a live colloquy on the floor of the Senate that never happened as evidence of congressional intent for the Detainee Treatment Act. For the background story see, Invisible men. – By Emily Bazelon – Slate Magazine, and FindLaw's Writ – Dean: Senators Kyl and Graham's Hamdan v. Rumsfeld Scam The Deceptive Amicus Brief They Filed in the Guantanamo Detainee Case:
To assist the [Bush/Cheney] Administration, Republican Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jon Kyl of Arizona engaged in a blatant scam that was revealed during the briefing of Hamdan.
Senators Graham and Kyl not only misled their Senate colleagues, but also shamed their high offices by trying to deliberately mislead the U.S. Supreme Court. Their effort failed.
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Out of an apparent concern for interbranch comity, the High Court has chosen to ignore the bogus brief filed by Senators Graham and Kyl, rather than reprimanding the Senators. Nevertheless, when Graham and Kyl sought to file the very same brief, a month later, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columba, Slate's Emily Bazelon reports that court "issued an unusual order rejecting" their amicus brief alone, although they accepted five others.
This was a serious ethical violation for a lawyer. Kyl and Graham could have and should have been sanctioned by the D.C. bar.
These clowns aren't qualified to carry Thurgood Marshall's briefcase into a courtroom. How dare these shameful liars attack a legendary lawyer and jurist like Thurgood Marshall.
Here is how Dana Milbank described the hearing on Monday. Kagan may get confirmed, but Thurgood Marshall can forget it:
As confirmation hearings opened Monday afternoon, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee took the unusual approach of attacking Kagan because she admired the late justice Thurgood Marshall, for whom she clerked more than two decades ago.
"Justice Marshall's judicial philosophy," said Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, "is not what I would consider to be mainstream." Kyl — the lone member of the panel in shirtsleeves for the big event — was ready for a scrap. Marshall "might be the epitome of a results-oriented judge," he said.
It was, to say the least, a curious strategy to go after Marshall, the iconic civil rights lawyer who successfully argued Brown vs. Board of Education. Did Republicans think it would help their cause to criticize the first African American on the Supreme Court, a revered figure who has been celebrated with an airport, a postage stamp and a Broadway show? The guy is a saint — literally. Marshall this spring was added to the Episcopal Church's list of "Holy Women and Holy Men," which the Episcopal Diocese of New York says "is akin to being granted sainthood."
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Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the panel, branded Marshall a "well-known activist."
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Marshall's legal view "does not comport with the proper role of a judge or judicial method."
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) pronounced Marshall "a judicial activist" with a "judicial philosophy that concerns me."
The problem with this line of attack is that Marshall was already confirmed by the Senate — in 1967. He died in 1993. In the audience Monday, his son, Thurgood "Goody" Marshall Jr., sat two rows behind the nominee and listened with amusement to the assaults on his father.
These despicable creatures owe a public apology to the family members of Thurgood Marshall, his extended family at the NAACP which Marshall represented in a series of civil rights cases including the landmark Brown v. Board of Education, and the countless civil rights activists who fought and died for civil rights in this country who looked to Thurgood Marshall for inspiration. Thurgood Marshall is an inspirational American hero to many Americans, including me. When these Republican thugs defame Thurgood Marshall's good name and historic achievements they insult all Americans who honor him.