Just Us Ladies

I couldn't care less arguing the merits or demerits of Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court, because at this point I implicitly trust President Barack Obama to make good judicial appointments. He nailed it with Justice Sonia Sotomayor, great choice and got her through the vile opposition non-arguments, and he's two for two with female appointments. I say the next one who goes, nominate another woman. Imagine a Court that's 44% female, under actual U.S. representation but just about half. Keep it up, Barack, and slam down the stupid Tea Bagger Partier arguments already forming that she's some sort of lesbian Communist. The only good arguments against her are from the left, and in this environment they'll rather take a chance that she's become better on the bench, and they'll probably be right.

I like that Obama has also nominated his second New Yorker. Go team! Two tough New York women...only a moron would mess with them in Court or deliberations. And I'll bet the conversations will speed up. I like that she was the first woman to do a lot of things:



I like that she clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American on our Supreme Court. And that she's already being attacked by RNC Chair Michael Steele -- for coming out against slavery!:

In its first memo to reporters since Kagan's nomination to the high court became public, the Republican National Committee highlighted Kagan's tribute to Marshall in a 1993 law review article published shortly after his death.

Kagan quoted from a speech Marshall gave in 1987 in which he said the Constitution as originally conceived and drafted was "defective." She quoted him as saying the Supreme Court's mission was to "show a special solicitude for the despised and the disadvantaged."

...

"We the People" included, in the words of the Framers, "the whole Number of free Persons." United States Constitution, Art. 1, 52 (Sept. 17, 1787). On a matter so basic as the right to vote, for example, Negro slaves were excluded, although they were counted for representational purposes at threefifths each. Women did not gain the right to vote for over a hundred and thirty years. The 19th Amendment (ratified in 1920).

These omissions were intentional. The record of the Framers' debates on the slave question is especially clear: The Southern States acceded to the demands of the New England States for giving Congress broad power to regulate commerce, in exchange for the right to continue the slave trade. The economic interests of the regions coalesced: New Englanders engaged in the "carrying trade" would profit from transporting slaves from Africa as well as goods produced in America by slave labor. The perpetuation of slavery ensured the primary source of wealth in the Southern States.

By now it's pointless to ask whether Michael Steele has any sense of shame -- we all know the answer. What people don't know is what Kagan will ultimately bring to the court, but it's okay to ask.

Speaking of women and firsts, Lena Horne has passed away at the age of 92. Lots of grandkids and even great-grandkids, a grande dame also of -- surprise -- Manhattan.



A long, fascinating, no doubt difficult career, breaking barriers by organically changing perceptions of race, an extremely appealing actress and singer, who was also extremely cool politically. And what an arc of a life:

Looking back at the age of 80, Ms. Horne said: “My identity is very clear to me now. I am a black woman. I’m free. I no longer have to be a ‘credit.’ I don’t have to be a symbol to anybody; I don’t have to be a first to anybody. I don’t have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I’d become. I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.”

Thanks to President Obama, the train's left the station on being able to imagine an American of any color or ethnic background eventually becoming President, nor will gender matter in a the Supreme Court nomination. America evolves, even with the yahoos barking at the door.