Thurgood Marshall Fund Responds to Limbaugh Hissy Fit About Kagan. CORRECTED

Climbing onto his high horse yet again, Rush Limbaugh is having a hissy fit over the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court claiming, among other reasons, that statements made by the late Justice Thurgood Marshall about the Constitution, whom Limbaugh states that she idolizes, (idolizes? do we all 'idolize' our mentors?) disqualify her.

Limbaugh quotes Marshall as saying that;

"The Constitution as originally drafted and conceived was defective..."

Limbaugh continues by relating Marshall's comments about how it was only over the course of the next 200 years after the signing of the original Constitution that the people on the Supreme Court had made it worth anything. To Limbaugh, of course, this meant that Marshall was referring only to himself, because that is what he would do as everything is apparently all about him.He is outraged that anyone, particularly a Supreme Court Justice would question the Constitution. Hello? Does anyone want to tell him what the Court is for? Because it is not a perfect document, it needs people to interpret it and apply it to everyday life - thus the Supreme Court.


Has Rush ever actual read the Constitution? Does he understand that in the original, the Founders were referring only to white men, and landowning white men at that? That when they said that, "All men are created equal," they meant exactly that? Women in this country, with the exception of some individual states, were not granted full suffrage by Constitutional right until 1920 with passage of the 19th Amendment.

How about the Bill of Rights, Rush? Not included in the original Constitution. Those 1st through 10th Constitutional rights all the teabaggers get excited about are actually amendments. Including that pesky 2nd Amendment about the right to keep and bear arms, and the 10th that you Republicans love so much about states rights.

I know all you Republicans wish some of the more recent Supreme Court decisions like Brown v Board of Education (the one Marshall is most famous for, actually), and Roe v Wade had never happened, but you have to admit, if we still had just the original Constitution (which, by the way is amended because the Founders knew they were imperfect human beings and thus allowed in its creation for the amendment process to occur) our country would look very, very different. A lot like an elitist-run, no opportunity country they claim to love. Imagine that.

In a statement released today by the Thurgood Marshall Fund regarding Limbaugh's attacks, they said that;

"The story of Brown vs. The Board of Education is one of hope and courage. May 17, 1954 was a truly historic day for our nation as the United States Supreme Court handed down a landmark unanimous decision striking down Plessy v. Ferguson, a holding that, since 1896, made “Separate But Equal” the law of the land and kept our nation’s schools segregated. The Brown decision not only integrated our public schools, but it ultimately opened up so many doors of opportunity wrongfully closed to people just because of the color of their skin. Thurgood Marshall, the lead attorney in the Brown case, became our nation’s first African-American Solicitor General and later the first African-American Supreme Court Justice."

"The Late Justice Marshall challenged America to continue to “Knock down the fences that divide, tear apart the walls that imprison, and reach out, for freedom lies just on the other side...”

Slavery and gender inequality were embedded in our Constitution. The Founders could not have known the changes that would occur in our world in the time since this nation was created, however, they had the vision to understand that without change, this nation would die, and thus produced a living document. A document that has embedded in its foundation that process for change.

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