Get ready for the mud flinging: Bachelorette No. 2 picked for the Supremes

Here is what one can expect out of the Republican members of the Senate during confirmation hearings for newest Supreme Court pick Elena Kagan: “No.”

Just say no. The words of Nancy Reagan are once again popular among the GOP crowd except this time it doesn’t have to do with drugs. No. No means no. No means everything. The Republicans will vote no against everything the Democrats do. Somehow, that seems quite foolish not to mention petulant.

No matter that the Senate confirmed Kagan last year by a vote of  61-31 as President Obama’s pick for solicitor general. So what happened between then? Nothing that anyone can think of but many GOP members of Senate will drag Kagan through the mud.

She is liberal, liberal, liberal, the Republicans will say. Kagan is an alteh moid — Jewish spinster lady — although doubtfully any senator would be foolish enough to call her that. Well, we shall see.  But that doesn’t keep the interest groups pressuring their Republican senators, who still will likely do nothing to keep Kagan from being confirmed, from using her past to smear her. Never married at 50, huh? You know what that means! Limbaugh will probably call her something short of a “dyke.”

To be fair, I remember some of the same discussion upon the GOP pick of retired Justice David Souter, who turned out to be a disappointment to the Republicans.  Not surprising though, the whisper campaign against Souter appeared as to be as much from the right as from the Democrats.

The confirmation hearings will be pure politics. That’s all that it has been for years now. Not just for Clarence Thomas, an electronic lynching. But if you think things are bad now, just think how gruesome the political carnage will be if Obama gets to replace one of the right-wing members of the court. Oh my, my. I don’t know whether to hope for it or to  hope it doesn’t happen.