The Republican Party in 2010

Apparently still upset with Thurgood Marshall...

Oh, and Virgil has some thoughts too.

Comments

[Glen Tomkins]

Someone please explain to me what the Rs are up to with this?

Of course they've got their Southern Strategy they've been working since the Ds handed them the seg franchise in 1964. But I thought the whole point of that was to use a dog whistle, to make your points with the die-hard segregationists in some code that only they would recognize, so as not to disturb the non-crazy and non-racist parts of your coalition. But now they're going after Brown v Board of Education itself, not in any sort of code, or at frequencies only racists can hear?

Here they've got a great chance to take back the House, after two losing cycles, when they really need a win to avoid starting to look like permanent losers. The economy's in the tank, it's the first midterm after a presidential wave election, everything is falling into place for them. So at this juncture, they stand up and shout, "It's not the economy, stupid! The real problem this country has right now is that activist judges ended segregation 60 years ago!". Wow.

Oh, they still might win the next election. A bad economy speaks louder than anything. But why are they trying to drown that voice out by shouting up a return to segregation days? It's as if they decided to follow a script I had written for them, after I had carefully calculated how best to get them to lose the election.

[NotLinwoodHolton]

Rand Paul will obviously feel right at home in the Senate Republican caucus.

[Scout]

It seems more and more frequent that the Rs in Congress are causing us Rs in the real world to have to skulk around hoping no one will notice. What in the name of heaven is this Thurgood Marshall line of attack all about? How incredibly dumb is this? The man had a brilliant record as an advocate before the Court, served a considerable length of time on the Court and, for those who didn't notice, is dead as a doornail. The Senate will not be asked to preside at an impeachment trial, and there's no way the Judiciary Committee will have anything before it involving Marshall. Where does this go?

[Brian W. Schoeneman]

Glen, it is ridiculous that you're assuming that attacks on Marshall had anything to do with race. If she'd clerked for Bill Brennan, they'd have made the same attack.

For a party that claims to be progressive on race, you all can't stop yourselves from dragging it into every discussion, regardless of whether it belongs there or not.

[Bubby Hussein, Hillbilly Sheikh]

Yeah Brian, because nothing says "non-racist Republican" like an attack on the man who won the desegregation of public schools, the end to Jim Crow, and later became the first Black man to sit on the Supreme Court.

I'll take Jon Kyl at his word yesterday: “Justice Marshall’s judicial philosophy, is not what I would consider to be mainstream.”

Or, as Gov. McDonnell said last month, "Slavery wasn't a significant aspect of the Civil War."

Who's dragging what Brian?

[Dan]

After the hearings in which they had obsessed on Marshall, TPMDC's reporter asked Senators Sessions, Hatch and Coburn to name even one decision which demonstrated his "liberal activism". None of these intellectual giants could name one. Pathetic group. I guess they just read the talking points and recite them. They don't think any deeper than that.

Sessions of course couldn't be confirmed by a Republican Senate when he was nominated by Reagan for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. Something about his neanderthal attitude about race that even his fellow Republicans couldn't stomach. He called the NAACP a "communist inspired" organization because they "forced civil rights down the throats of people." He called a white lawyer who handled voting rights cases a "disgrace to his race". And there were volumes of other examples of this guy's true character.

Of course the Republican Party of 2010 is not the Republican Party of the 1980s. Sessions fits right in today.

Brian, you can keep being an apologist for these guys if you like. But you are contributing to the problem for your party. Until people like you start calling these guys out the GOP will continue to be a bad joke rather than a serious political party.

[Brian W. Schoeneman]

The attack on him is for his jurisprudence after he was on the Court, Bubby. Not before. And for the record, he won the Brown case, but the end of Jim Crow was the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which would not have been passed without significant Republican support.

Marshall and Brennan were, according to conservatives, very activist in their judicial philosophy. That's what Kyl means. It had nothing to do with race.

Like I said, if she'd clerked for Brennan or Stevens, they'd be going after those guys. Marshall's race has nothing to do with it.

Dan, I am not apologizing for anyone. I am simply pointing out that the only people here crying race are the Democrats. Marshall sat on the court for thirty years. Besides his support for Roe v. Wade, he also supported finding the death penalty unconstitutional in all circumstances, and he was on the liberal side of every major case during his tenure. He and Bill Brennan were attached at the hip.

Park the ignorant race baiting at the door.

[Dan]

"Park the ignorant race baiting at the door."

Brian, these hearings are being used to communicate with a base who hears the dog whistle. This is hardly a new tactic. And as long as people like you pretend it isn't going on your party will continue to be controlled by this type.

I guess you have no idea why your party regularly fails to attract more than single digits of the African American vote in election after election? Or why you have no African American members of Congress?

Couldn't possibly be the barely concealed appeals to racism that have become a staple of the modern Republican Party. Couldn't have anything to do with all those e-mails with the pictures of the president with a bone in his nose.

And you have the nerve to accuse others of race baiting when they simply point out a single occurrence of something that has become so common in the modern Republican Party that it draws a yawn instead of surprise. Much less outrage.

I want to see the Republicans lose elections. So this behavior on their part is consistent with my goals. I would think you might want to call these assholes out on it and force positive change in your party so that it might have greater electoral success. Rather than pretend that something that is painfully obvious isn't there.

Or are the crazies so firmly in the driver's seat that normal Republicans are too afraid to raise their heads? It is going to be a long rough ride for you guys.

[Gretchen Laskas]

Given that my son is named for William Brennan and my husband and I used to half joke that if we had a second son, we'd have to consider the name Marshall just because they worked so well together, I don't dispute the similarity in judicial temperament. (We also had to realize that the name Thomas was out, and we went back and forth on Connor -- ha ha -- get it?)

Anyway, Brian may be telling the truth that this could just have easily been done regarding Brennan's records as it is Marshall's, but it's unfortunately for serious Republicans that, once again, they are forced to look as though they are saying that cases like BROWN and justices like Marshall were part of the country's problem, not, as most Americans (even some Republicans!) believe, part of the solution.

[Bubby Hussein, Hillbilly Sheikh]

Brian: 30 years before Marshall was selected as the negro who would "desegregate" the Supreme court, he was beating Jim Crow laws using the same tactics that would win him the Brown v Board of Ed. case. I'm just a dumb hillbilly and I know that, what's your excuse?

As Jon Kyl said yesterday, T. Marshall was not in the racist Republican mainstream. That's why all those southern Democrats followed Strom Thurmond into the Republican party in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But you knew that didn't you?

When the Republican Party made that racism deal with the devil in 1968 - just to gain a majority, the devil got his due. Richard Nixon's soul was just the downpayment. The serpent still lives amongst you.

[Dan]

I suppose attacking Marshall just demonstrates how little the Republicans have to say. But then not being able to name a single case that demonstrates their "point" just illustrates an astounding level of laziness.

I guess the talking points just said "She clerked for Marshall. Attack Marshal". The conservative think tanks apparently haven't fed the Senators more complete talking points citing cases.

Of course, these clowns are supposed to be members of the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate. You might think they would be prepared to answer a softball question like that without extensive preparation. Particularly since they decided to make this ridiculous attack on Justice Marshall the highlight of their showboating.

I suspect Marshall will be remembered long after a little turd like Sessions is long forgotten.

[Dan]

Bubby, you haven't been reading your revisionist history. The Republican party is the champion of racial tolerance and the Democrats are a bunch of evil racists.

How else do you explain the huge majority of black votes the Republicans receive every election.

Lyndon Johnson just grabbed all the credit for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But we know he had nothing to do with it. That's why Goldwater carried Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina in the 1964 presidential election. It was the votes of all those grateful black voters in those states that put him over the top.

[steve vaughan]

Brian: The minute you guys throw unrepentant racist Jeff Sessions out of your party is the minute you can complain that Democrats are "race baiting." Having heard this defense from you before, I wonder how loudly a Republican would have to shout the 'N' word in public before you'd admit there was racial issue?

[Brian W. Schoeneman]

Bubby, Jim Crow didn't end until the federal government came in and forced itself on the southern states. Marshall won many victories, but they were individual battles. The war was won with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and that would have been impossible without Republicans.

Dan, these hearings aren't being heard by anybody. No one is watching them. What's the point? This isn't the Bork era. This isn't Clarence Thomas (as the dog whistle blowing during those hearings?). And frankly, if the worst you can say about the racists of today is that they've got to resort to "dog whistle" politics, I mark that as significant progress. It's a long way from the days when the Democratic party and their Ku Klux Klan enforcement arm was out lynching and disenfranchising blacks across the South.

This isn't revisionist history. This is actual history. Go learn it. Jefferson Davis was not a Republican. Nathan Bedford Forrest was not a Republican. Neither James Eastland. Or George Wallace. Or Theodore Bilbo. Or Bull Connor.

The men who tore apart the union, who spilled the blood of hundreds of thousands of Americans, who oppressed blacks, who were responsible for the Dred Scott case, for Plessy vs. Ferguson, for Jim Crow, for the entire racist regime that shaped the south for generations were uniformly Democrats. All of them.

That's why the greatest abolitonists and racial reformers in history have been Republicans. Lincoln. Stevens. Sumner. Even Martin Luther King was a Republican. Why? Because the Democrats in Alabama were the ones killing his people and denying them their rights.

Yet you get to sit there and crow at us because we made the mistake of welcoming racists when they had no party of their own? Did they get to keep doing what they had been doing in Democratic party when they joined us? No. Did Thurmond filibuster any more civil rights legislation after he became a Republican? No. You can talk about your dog whistles and your closet racists and the rest of that nonsense all day long and it won't change history. If it makes you feel better, so be it. But you should take a few minutes and actually learn the history of the party you call your own. I have.

Steve, I don't control who is a Republican. I don't control the Alabama Republican Party, either. All I can say is that in my party, racism is not condoned or acceptable. Period.

Marshall was a liberal. Kagan is a liberal. Marshall was an activist according to conservative thinkers, and so they are trying to paint Kagan as a liberal. It's weak, but that's because everything we have against Kagan is weak. She's no different than Sotomayor or any of the other liberals on the court and she'll be confirmed with no problems. These hearings are a waste of time.

[Bubby Hussein, Hillbilly Sheikh]

Brian, that was no "mistake" - welcoming racists into the Republican party, it was a calculated strategy to revitalize a party at the expense of the nation. And just when America had turned it's back on Nixon's cynical ploy, Ronald Reagan stepped up to exploit the old divisions that simmer on from the Civil War.

There he was, standing in the very place in Mississippi where 3 Civil Rights workers had been murdered 16 years earlier, announcing his candidacy for the Presidency. His platform? "states rights". The Devil smiled, his contract was renewed. Division was legitimized. Again.

[Brian W. Schoeneman]

Bubby, again, you're condemning us for speechmaking, allowing racists to join, etc. I'm not saying those are good things but put those things in the right perspective: I'm pointing out the fact that your party condoned and participated in murder and terrorism to achieve their political goals.

Which is worse?

[Dan]

Heaven forbid honest men should condemn these guys. There are elections to be won.

Brian, the key difference in my lifetime is that the Democratic Party was willing to stand up for principle (a word Republicans pay a great deal of lip service to but not much else) and sacrifice the South for generations by passing the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. At the same time the Republicans made a cynical choice to pander to and embrace the old segregationist haters in an effort to gain electoral advantage. I guess "country first" is just an empty slogan.

Bubby's analogy to making a deal with the devil is spot on. And Reagan announcing his candidacy in Philadelphia Mississippi sent an unmistakable message to the people for whom it was meant.

It is clear how we two white boys view this matter. How do you suppose the roughly 90% of black voters who go out and regularly vote Democratic view it?

I won't pretend to be able to read their minds, but I do know one thing for sure. The Republicans don't have a damned clue. And worse, seem oblivious to the behavior they both engage in and encourage that continues to drive black voters away.

Here's a hint you can pass on to your fellow Republicans. Yammering on incessantly about Robert Byrd being in the KKK seventy years ago doesn't make up for viral e-mails sent in 2010 filled with watermelon and fried chicken jokes and depicting the President of the United States with a bone in his nose.

You have a problem in your party. Ignoring it isn't going to make it go away. It needs to be confronted by normal Republicans. But in an era when you are welcoming back the Birchers and so many of the other loonies you had locked in the attic it isn't likely to happen. Insanity and bigotry are the order of the day. The crazy has a long course yet to run I am afraid. It ain't gonna get any prettier.

[Glen Tomkins]

Brian,

No one doubts that you folks are the undisputed masters of victimology. So, by all means, please take whatever props you deserve for the events of 150 years ago, when yours was the party of Lincoln.

But most of us are more concerend with what the parties have done lately. Again, take whatever thanks is your due for taking on poor, deprived Strom Thurmond, and Jesse Helms, and whatever other segregationist Ds, victims of our cruel and heartless refusal to any longer pander to their proclivities, whom we coldly left orphaned when our party gave up the segregationist franchise in 1964. Mighty white of you guys to keep Strom and Jesse from filibustering any civil rights legislation -- after such legislation was all passed, which is what caused them to go over to your party in the first place.

Now, as long as we're going over the history, let's turn to Lee Atwater, in whose steps as a Republican political consultant you now apparently walk, for the explanation of what happened next. I've had to clean it up because I don't think this site should be dirtied up with frank verbatim quotes from Republican political consultants, but here it goes, "You start out in 1954 by saying, 'N-----, n-----, n-----.' By 1968 you can’t say 'n-----'—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites."

Atwater didn't include "judicial activism" in his list, understandable given the florid growth of manifestations of this strategy, but it arguably has the honor of being the first of the dog whistle code words. "Judicial activism" is the excuse that people who couldn't defend segregation on its merits, used to attack Brown v Board of Education back in the 50s. Ending Jim Crow may be all well and good, they would say, a noble cause, but you need to go about that the right way, legislatively, not via activist judges usurping the role of Congress (where civil rights could be filibustered) and the states. That whole "Impeach Earl Warren" thing was based on this thinking, that, whatever the merits of civil rights, the SC under his leadership had obverstepped its bounds by imposing civil rights on the country.

But let's leave the history aside, and see if we can agree on where things stand now, in 2010. Brown v Board of Education -- a sound decision, or judicial overreach? If you say sound decision, as your rhetoric would seemn to predict, then please answer my original question in this thread -- what in God's name are your boys in the Senate doing saying that it was an example of judicial activism? I kind of thought that there was this consensus among all of us to the left of the Aryan Nation, that segregation was a bad thing, that ending it was a good thing, and that carping over how it was ended, with the SC taking the lead and the Congress lagging, was no longer acceptable, because, whatever the status of the more current versions of the dog whistle, that prototype was now about the same level as just using the n----- word.

Maybe I was just naive about what is and is no longer acceptable in the mainstream, at least the mainstream of your party. Until this year, I thought that "states' rights" had about the same status as "judicial activism", in that it was now generally recognized as being merely a code word for the continued right of some states to practice segregation. But now we have Cuccinelli telling us that I was wrong, that state interposition, forget the history of this term, is now at least as respectable as the Commonwealth AG's office.

Maybe that's my problem, I can't adjust to you new wave Rs, and your radical new modes of higher thought. You've got your boy Glenn Beck telling us that blacks and Democrats don't really understand the legacy of Martin Luther King (Was your calling MLK a Republican, true maybe of MLK Sr, but, not, I would think, of the famous MLK, a shout out to Beck?), who would probably vote R today if that white guy (a D no doubt), hadn't shot him. You've got history running in reverse now. How long until it's acceptable to just shout "N-----, n-----, n-----.!"?

[Gretchen Laskas]

Brian -- I'm sympathetic. More than that, I'm empathetic. I'm a Democrat in part because of my family's ties to the labor movement, and I'm intensely proud of that, as a person, as family member, and as a Democrat. But growing up in the 1980's, in wasn't quite so easy to preach outside of the choir. Teamster corruption was simply part of that history too (my mother-in-law was a Teamster, and fought to give women equal pay for equal work long before I was born....) I've heard everything you can imagine about Jimmy Hoffa. That doesn't change why I'm proud of my labor history, or my Democratic heritage, but it's part of the story too. You deal with it -- history is messy, after all, no matter which side you're on.

[Brian W. Schoeneman]

Glen, it's not acceptable now and it was never acceptable. Lee Atwater recognized what he did and advocated was wrong and he apologized for it. Atwater was speaking about a different time. Things have changed a bit since the 70s and the 80s.

Yes, I think Brown v. Board was a sound decision. And I also believe it was judicial activism. But it was necessary judicial activism because the Senate, at the time, was broken. There was no other branch of government that could have done what needed to be done to break the Senate's hold on race relations, and the Court did what it did. Was it okay? Yes. Not all judicial activism is bad.

I would also note that Earl Warren was an Eisenhower appointee, even if Ike regretted the choice later.

As a student of the law, I have a much higher standard when it comes to calling something judicial activism than some of my Republican colleagues do. Any time you're overturning a precedent or creating judge made law (which happens far more often at the state level) you're engaging in judicial activism. Some of it is more defensible than others. Brown is completely defensible. Roe, not so much. Miranda is defensible. Heller is defensible. Other cases are not.

A lot of the buzz words your generation thinks are buzz words mean nothing to my generation and the generations that after us. I'm a GenXer, and for me, states rights has always meant allowing the states the decision making power, because they were better arbiters of what is in the best interest of their citizens and they are more responsive to citizens than the federal government. That's still how I think of the term, despite knowing the history of it and its use as a cover for Jim Crow. That's not how it's used in most Republican circles now, although I know nothing I say is going to make you change your mind.

I can understand attacking Marshall because he was, in some Republicans minds, an activist judge. I think he wouldn't have had a problem with that label - in fact, I think he would have probably embraced it.

What I can't understand is why anyone assumes that it has anything to do with his race. His name would never have come up had he not been the Justice Kagan clerked for. Period.

[change]

Anyone who believes “states rights” is a call to revive slavery is either a liar or a moron.

It was the republicans that supported the civil rights acts and these facts are simple and true.

It was a republican who put the only sitting black supreme court justice on the bench over the cries and gnashing of teeth of the democrats.

Some question why most blacks vote for democrats? The answer is simple, democrats have successfully taken advantage of them and many others on the left who believe the lies that most democrats spew.

The democrats are the ones who have successfully placed minorities back in the “slave” position by making them slaves to a system that is doomed to failure. Democrats understand that most minorities are more aligned in their values to conservatives and continue to “fearmonger” in order to keep them in the democrat ranks.
The biggest fear of the democrats is that their “house of cards” is crumbling and with it will go the support of all but the most rabid uber liberals; it is not a matter of “if” just a matter of “when”.

[change]

It is a bit telling how testy liberals get when confronted with the word “activist”; like the word “liberal” they know that it is not mainstream America, therefore they want to avoid or change the word instead of being proud of their stance. I have never heard a “strict constructionist” cower at the term.

Whatever one might be they should be honest and up front about it. If you have to run away from your beliefs to be accepted, maybe you should reconsider. You should be proud to be a “liberal” or an “activist”, you should not make your goal to change the word to fool people.

[Bubby Hussein, Hillbilly Sheikh]

Brian; You need to pick a defense; either you are a short-pants genX-er Republican who doesn't understand the gravity of "states rights" or you are a Lincoln Republican who does. These aren't just buzz words son, they are the coin of slavers, traitors, segregationists, and their apologists.

[Dan]

"Some question why most blacks vote for democrats? The answer is simple, democrats have successfully taken advantage of them and many others on the left who believe the lies that most democrats spew."

I knew I could count on change to make the insulting paternalistic argument that blacks are stupid children who have been "taken advantage of" and "fooled" into voting for Democrats. If only they were smarter like change they would understand that they should be voting for Republicans.

You stick with that argument and that strategy, change. If you do I bet hell will freeze over before the Republican share of the black vote rises above pathetic.

I bet you forwarded every one of those fried chicken and watermelon emails to all your buddies didn't you? Probably used the bone in the nose Obama as wallpaper. But if blacks weren't so easily fooled they would be voting just like you.

You stick with that reasoning. If you can call that reasoning.

[Brian W. Schoeneman]

Bubby, you mean Democrats, right?

I understand what "states rights" means to you. It does not mean the same to me. What it meant in 1860 is not the same as what it means in 2010. The meanings of words and phrases evolve over time. You think anyone in 1860 would be offended if they were called gay? I doubt it.

[Bob]

Wow change. The Dems have successfully taken advantage of blacks? So they can't think for themselves? Do you think they're just naturally intellectually inferior to all the smart poor white folks who vote Republican? Maybe we should give them their own, special school...

Racism lives in the Republican party, and change's remarks just embodied that.

[TomPaine]

"All I can say is that in my party [the Republican Party], racism is not condoned or acceptable. Period.

Oh, so Jeff Sessions (other recent Republicans like Trent Lott) are not racists? In what world is that?

As to Abe Lincoln, Charles Summner, Thad Stevens, and many other pro-civil rights Republicans between 1860 and 1968 (Evert Dirksen, Barry Goldwater, et al.), the fact is that they could not survive in the present day Republican Party. For a supposedly smart and educated man, your understanding of American History is abysmal.

The pre-Civil War Democratic Party has a lot apologize for its civil rights record (and even Robert Byrd) was able to redeem himself by the 1970s. Those Democratic racist who could not redeem themselves went over to the Republican Party lock, stock, and barrel.

Apparently, American History ended for you sometime in the late 1960s.

[Brian W. Schoeneman]

TP, as I already said, I have no control over the Alabama Republican Party or the folks they nominate. But I have said and will continue to say that racists have no place in the political sphere, regardless of party.

My history is just fine. I think those Republicans would fit in just fine in the modern party. Their stances on most of the issues that matter most to Republicans is little changed. Those issues, like fiscal conservatism, a strict reading of the constitution, etc., would have been embraced by those folks.

As I've said ad nauseum, the worst we as a party did was provide a refuge to racists. Weigh what Democrats have done and what Republicans have done, and the scale is still leaning heavily against the Democrats.

I don't think Democrats have successfully taken advantage of blacks, any more than I think that they've taken advantage of teenagers, the labor vote, gays or any of their other major constituencies. We lost them. It's time that changed.

[Bob]

Brian, it is consistently clear to me that you, yourself, are not a racist, and that a vast majority of Republicans are not racist. But you all frequently seem far too willing to ignore that Republicans cannot get elected without the racist vote, and so far too many of your leaders, most of them not racist themselves, pander to that demographic so they can win.

You want to prove to us that you're not the party of racists, while not engaging in the "race baiting" you think Democrats engage in? Don't nominate candidates who question the Civil Rights Act (Rand Paul), or who have written theses on the "detrimental" place of working women without apologizing for it (Bob McDonnell), or who are upset that "the America I grew up in is disappearing" (the America they grew up in was segregated and homogenous). These kinds of things would be disqualifying in a Democratic primary unless there's been an authentic apology. Republicans could easily do the same, yet you don't.

You, the non-racist majority of Republicans, have the power to change it. But unlike Democrats who were willing to concede the South in the end with the Civil Rights Act, you're just not willing to accept the electoral losses that would come with throwing the racists out.

[Brian W. Schoeneman]

Bob, the difference between the parties is that Democrats seem to view every statement through a race related lens, whereas Republicans don't. Rand Paul's questioning of the Civil Rights Act wasn't based on race. It was based on the conservative belief - and this is one that dates back to Goldwater and before - that the government should intervene in the internal workings of the private sector. That's not racist. That's libertarian. I disagree with it, but I don't jump to the conclusion that it's racist or cover for racism. I don't believe it is. This is Rand Paul we're talking about, not David Duke.

McDonnell's thesis and the lament that the "America I grew up in is disappearing" are not racist either. McDonnell's theme was his desire for a greater reliance on the family. Some of the tightest knit family units in America today are in minority families and the tradition of close knit immigrant families remains to this day.

Longing for the "good old days" is a standard nostalgia that all Americans, from all races and walks of life take part in. Of course, the good old days for one person are the bad old days for another. That's just a function of life. I remember the good old days of the early eighties when I was growing up and recognize that a lot of folks hated that time and don't remember it as fondly as I do. But for me, remember when Reagan was President, Knight Rider was on TV and my Orioles didn't suck brings back fond memories. But that doesn't mean I want to go back to the days of gas lines, massive deficit spending, the Cold War and yuppies.

We are working to change the party, but it is going to take time. And it would also be helpful that instead of constantly using race as a way to bash us, Democrats - who claim to truly care about eradicating racism - would help us rather than hinder the process. And one of the best ways to do that is to stop seeing racial boogiemen around every corner.

The attack on Marshall was an attack on liberal judges. That's it.

[Brian W. Schoeneman]

*should not intervene.

[bubberella]

The charges of liberals playing the "race card" ring about as true as the oppression of conservatives via "political correctness".

The Republican party has earned the distinction of being hostile toward blacks in recent history. The tea-party crowd is rife with racism if you listen to its members and read their signs.

It strains my credulity to hear Republicans contend that racism in their party is over because a black and an Indian won primaries.

Why don't hispanics embrace the Republican party? Look to PWC and Arizona for your answer. Why don't blacks support your message of lower taxes and strong families? Could it be decades of protraying blacks as welfare queens or Willie Horton have anything to do with it?

And now it's playing the race card to suggest that all these Republicans trashing Thurgood Marshall is insensitive?

Please.

[mr. ed]

Hey Brian, we still have lots of yuppies. Have you been to Ashburn lately? ;-)

[Gretchen Laskas]

There's a David Hasselhoff roast coming up on Comedy Central....

[change]

Danny and Bobby,

Just because someone is “taken advantage of” does not make them less intelligent. But of course you have to make EVERYTHING a race issue. If you are looking for racism maybe you should check the mirror, as you seem to want to view everything from that perspective.

Many conservatives were “taken advantage of” (including me) when Bush 1 said “read my lips” they believed what he said and paid the price; does that make all conservatives unable to “think for themselves”? or “inferior”?. The answer is a resounding no; likewise, because many believed Obambi’s “change” mantra really meant something it does not make them less intelligent. Hell I even hoped that he might do well, even though I did not support him because I care about the country. (however, a “fool me twice” argument might be made)
It is that simple…

In fact, a willing disregard for true meaning of one’s words could be an example of ignorance but you already know this as you exemplify it in your discourse. The democrat mantra of “elect me and I will give you everything for nothing” is tired and worn; it has run it’s course and voters of all races are beginning to see thru that BS.

[Jack]

Were those Senators actually saying anything INCORRECT about Justice Marshall?

[change]

Jack,
The fact that Marshall was unashamedly “activist” does not matter to uber libs, anything negative said about a minority by a republican is defined as racist.

This may sound a strange definition, but you have to understand liberal thinking (or lack thereof). Truth is not the goal.

[James Young]

I think most people familiar with the Supreme Court would say that, while Marshall was a genius as a litigator, he was a disappointment as a Justice.

[change]

Tiger Wood’s Ex got 750 million settlement (the highest ever), according to the libs that must be race based… or maybe it’s Bush’s fault.

[change]

For those thinking to make jest.. I meant George "Bush".

[TomPaine]

Brian:

Lindsay Graham says:
"'We don't have a lot of Reagan-type leaders in our party. Remember Ronald Reagan Democrats? I want a Republican that can attract Democrats,' Graham also said, adding: 'Ronald Reagan would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today.'"

[change]

Clinton cleared it up today… it’s ok to be a racist so long as you are trying to get elected to office… Typical democrat(ic) logic.

And for those of you who bash on republicans who make mistakes, your leader absolved all when he said Rob. KKK, admitted to his mistakes and spent his later life “making up” for it…
(is Obambi laying a foundation for something???)

[TomPaine]

change:

There is a teabagger meeting in Prince William County that you are missing. Your rubber room is awaiting.