What Will We Do If We Get A Gay On The Supreme Court? Or Someone Who Wants To Sleep With A Goat?

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Many Americans are probably perplexed about why conservatives seem so hysterically concerned about Elena Kagan's sexual orientation. Fox and the rest of Murdoch's GOP media empire has gone so far to help its low-IQ viewers draw the conclusion that a dumpy unmarried woman who plays softball must be a lesbian. (One can only imagine what they would have to say about the incredible and brilliant progressive running for Congress from Salt Lake City!) Unmarried women-- especially ones with an inconvenient independent streak who refuse subservience to a patriarchal social organization-- have always been suspect, going right back to the Salem Witch Trials (1692-3).

Could anyone in the Senate be stupid and bigoted enough to care about this Fox-ring circus? In 1985-- and again in 1986-- Alabama Republican Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was rejected for a District Court appointment by the Republican-controlled Senate because of his blatant racism-- he once told an African-American Assistant U.S. Attorney to "be careful what you say to white folks"-- and his relationship with the Ku Klux Klan. One of the Republicans voting against Sessions' confirmation was Arlen Specter so it was with immense gusto that another vicious racist, Miss McConnell (R-KY), appointed Sessions the ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Specter switched parties last April and gave up that position. No one had to tell Sessions to let his bigotry run wild against President Obama's judicial nominees. It comes very naturally to him.

Having railroaded Abe Fortas off the Supreme Court, Richard Nixon sought to emphasize his much-touted Southern Strategy with two consecutive Supreme Court nominations of purposefully below par candidates. It didn't matter how mediocre and unqualified Clement Haynsworth of South Carolina and G. Harrold Carswell of Florida were; it only mattered that they were Southerners and extreme conservatives. Haynsworth was a die-hard segregationist and anti-union fanatic (as well as-- being a conservative-- a crook). When he was defeated in November 1969, 55-45 (with 38 Democrats and 17 Republicans voting against him), Nixon went bonkers... and then doubled down with an even worse nominee.

Just 7 months after being confirmed as a Court of Appeals Judge, Carswell was nominated by Nixon-- almost spitefully, daring the GOP-controlled Senate to reject two in a row-- to the Supreme Court seat Haynsworth was deemed not good enough for. Haynsworth was a pillar of wisdom compared to Carswell whose most notorious defender, Nebraska senatorial nitwit Roman Hruska, sought to help his foundering nomination by declaring "Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers, and they are entitled to a little representation, aren't they?" It didn't help, especially when he threw in the little anti-Semitic slur at the end: "We can't have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos."

Carswell's confirmation hearing showed him to be a bumbling judge, an unrepentant segregationist and a die-hard misogynist. 38 Democrats and 13 Republicans voted against him and his nomination went down in flames-- 51-45. Carswell was a typical Republican closet queen and went on to be arrested several times in public toilets trying to have sex with uninterested men. He was eventually arrested and convicted of attempting to perform fellatio on a policeman. I don't know if he was a softball player or a hardball player but later-- at around the same time Kagan is being accused of playing lesbianic softball-- he was beaten up by some redneck he had lured back to a motel room.

In his most recent book, Nixonland, Rick Perlstein documented Nixon's reactions to his dual defeats:

"I have reluctantly concluded-- with the Senate as presently constituted-- I cannot successfully nominate to the Supreme Court any federal appellate judge from the South who believes as I do in the strict construction of the Constitution. Judges Carswell and Haynsworth have endured with admirable dignity assaults on their intelligence, their honesty, and their character...

"But when all the hypocrisy is stripped away, the real issue was their philosophy of strict construction of the Constitution, and the fact that they had the misfortune of being born in the South... I chose them because they were both men of the South... I understand the bitter feelings of millions of Americans who live in the South about the act of regional discrimination that took place in the Senate yesterday. They have my assurance that the day will come when men like Judge Carswell and Haynsworth can and will sit on the high court."

Nixon then pivoted into trying to drive the most liberal-- and brilliant-- judge, William O. Douglas, off the court with the help of two conservative corporate shills, Republican clod Jerry Ford and vicious Dixiecrat Joe Waggonner. Meanwhile, his assurance that "the day will come when men like Judge Carswell and Haynsworth can and will sit on the high court" has certainly come true. The court is now dominated by mediocre, highly partisan corporate conservatives like Sam Alito, Clarence Thomas, Nino Scalia, John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy-- including a Southerner, Clarence Thomas, and a closet case (now retired), David Souter. You'll know the whole American experiment has failed when we finally do end up with one like Sessions though.