As Rachel noted, the media and the GOP establishment have been pretty quiet about Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan lately but that hasn't stopped some of the more extreme on the right from keeping up the attacks. Kent Jones reports on how the right has been trying to paint her as wanting to put the U.S. under Sharia law.
Right Wing Watch has more on this nonsense.
The Pathetic Desperation of the Anti-Kagan Campaign:
Because the Right has very little ammunition against Elena Kagan heading into her confirmation hearings next week, they have been desperately trying to make up "controversies" that they can try to use against her.
Which is why a donation made by Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal to Harvard University to establish an Islamic Studies program at the time that Kagan was Dean of Harvard Law School has been transformed into a right-wing claim that Kagan supports Sharia Law and "the enemy" while hating our troops.
So I guess it was only a matter of time until we started seeing things like this in Frank Gaffney's column in The Washington Times:
Hats off to Sen. Jeff Sessions. The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee has opened up an important new front in the debate over Solicitor General Elena Kagan's fitness to serve on the Supreme Court: her attitude toward the repressive legal code authoritative Islam calls Shariah and her enabling of efforts to insinuate it into this country.
By so doing, the Alabama legislator has given his colleagues and the country an opportunity not only to flesh out and evaluate the thin public record of President Obama's second nominee to a lifetime appointment on the nation's highest court but also afforded us all what Mr. Obama might call a "teachable moment."
Specifically, this Supreme Court nomination offers a prism for examining the concerted and ominous campaign under way to bring Shariah to America, thanks to the troubling role Ms. Kagan played during her tenure as dean of Harvard Law School.
And from Think Progress's Wonk Room.
Sessions Takes The Low Road Against Kagan:
Speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-AL) brought the debate over Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan substantially closer to the gutter by invoking the dread specter of ISLAMIC SHARIA LAW.
“New information has come to light,” Sessions ominously intoned, “suggesting that Ms. Kagan may even have been less morally principled in her approach than has been portrayed.”
...The idea that learning about Islamic faith and culture is, in and of itself, a form of indoctrination into extremism is a common trope on the goofball right. Unsurprisingly, World Net Daily is already touting the Sessions speech, likely soon to be followed by Commentary, the Weekly Standard, National Review, and Frank Gaffney claiming that Elena Kagan “may still be a Muslim.”
Honestly, I’m really not sure what’s more troubling here, the idea that the study of Islam necessarily connotes/inculcates support for Islamic extremism, or that Sessions thinks the conservative base is ignorant and bigoted enough to believe this. Or that he may be right.
And as Media Matters noted, The Washington Times fabricated a photo of Kagan in a turban in an attempt to tie her to Shariah.
Anyone who publishes anything Frank Gaffney has to say without huge warnings that neocon hackery is about to follow should not be allowed to pretend they're a "news" organization. Just shameful. Putting up a picture of a Supreme Court nominee in a turban to accompany that article puts them into Murdoch New York Post territory.
