Steele Fires Opening Salvo Against Kagan

If you were hoping for a quick, bipartisan approval process for Elena Kagan, keep dreaming. Michael Steele has put out a statement leaving little doubt that Republicans intend to challenge Kagan any way they can. He criticizes her for trying to bar military recruiters from Harvard Law School's campus, “her endorsement of the liberal agenda,” and “her support for statements suggesting that the Constitution, 'as originally drafted and conceived, was defective.'”

There's just one problem with that last, seemingly damning accusation: Kagan did indeed write that statement, but she was explicitly quoting none other than Thurgood Marshall, points out Greg Sargent of the Washington Post, and the defect in question was slavery, something we're gonna go ahead and assume Steele opposes, too. You can read Marshall's full statement here. Kagan's take was that Marshall believed that the role of courts in interpreting the constitution is “to safeguard the interests of people who had no other champion.” (More Michael Steele stories.)