As Media Matters persuasively explains, Elena Kagan walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, but she is clearly not a duck: Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck have falsely suggested Elena Kagan's college thesis shows she is a socialist or radical. In fact, Kagan's thesis did not express support for socialism or radicalism...
Rather, she explored the historical question of why socialism did not become a major political movement in the United States as it had elsewhere in the world. Specifically, Kagan discussed rise and fall of socialism in New York City in the early 20th century, with a particular emphasis on why the movement collapsed.
I report, you decide. Here's the conclusion of Kagan's 130-page thesis:
Why, in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party never attained the status of a major political force?
...Through its own internal feuding, then, the [Socialist Party] exhausted itself forever and further reduced labor radicalism in New York to the position of marginality and insignificance from which it has never recovered. The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism's decline, still wish to change America. Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of sectarianism; it is easier, after all, to fight one's fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful foe. Yet if the history of Local New York shows anything, it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope.
You see...she's not a supporter, she's just a cheerleader.
In a crude thought experiment, let's change a few words in Kagan's statement, and let's imagine that these are the words of a Supreme Court appointee, nominated by a GOP president:
Why, in a society by no means racially pure, has a radical White supremacist group never attained the status of a major political force?
...Through its own internal feuding, then, the KKK exhausted itself forever and further reduced racism in West Virginia to the position of marginality and insignificance from which it has never recovered. The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after the Klan's decline, still wish to change America. White supremacists have often succumbed to the devastating bane of sectarianism; it is easier, after all, to fight one's fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful foe. Yet if the history of the Klan shows anything, it is that American racists cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope.
I think the left-wing statist media would conclude that these words are not those of a dangerous radical white supremacist, don't you?
Count me among those who believe that Lindsay isn't a milkaholic, that Jeremiah isn't a racist, that Barney doesn't have a boyfriend, and that Elena "is about the furthest thing from a socialist. Period. And always had been. Period."
