Republicans Bash Thurgood Marshall

Republicans played the guilt-by-association game at Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearing yesterday, slamming the Supreme Court nominee for her ties to… Thurgood Marshall? The revered justice’s name came up 35 times during the first day of the hearing, compared to just 14 for President Obama, the Huffington Post reports, and often, it was because Republicans were bashing him. Jeff Sessions kicked things off, condemning Marshall as “a well-known liberal activist judge.”

There’s “no doubt he was an activist judge,” agreed Orrin Hatch in a TV interview. Asked later if he would have voted to confirm Marshall, Hatch replied, “Well, it’s hard to say.” Jon Kyl meanwhile, made the politically savvy decision to attack Marshall for protecting the little guy, decrying his view that the court’s job was to “protect the people who went unprotected by every other organ of government.” (More Thurgood Marshall stories.)