I always feel a little bad for Michael Steele since his job requires quite a lot of him. Now he’s slamming Elena Kagan for praising Thurgood Marshall when he said that the original constitution was ‘defective’ because of its embrace of slavery.

Really? Can’t we agree the whole constitutional embrace of slavery was a bit of a problem?

Republicans were loving ex-hospital Columbia HCA CEO Rick Scott when he was running and funding a kamikaze ad campaign (Conservatives for Patients Rights) against Health Care Reform. Then he decided to he needed to run for Governor of Florida against the GOP’s annointed candidated, Bill McCollum.

Club for Growth takes credit for taking out Sen. Bob Bennett (R) in the Utah GOP convention.

There was a bit of press attention to the RNC’s Friday afternoon announcement that Michael Steele had fired RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart. Also fired though was his deputy Debbie LeHardy. And it seems she may have been more directly misreporting expenses — stuff that could take the RNC’s money woes from bad press to outright criminal liability.

What’s the GOP plan for killing the Kagan nomination? Take a listen for yourself.

We’ve got exclusive audio of the GOP’s lead Court strategist, Curt Levey, briefing RNC leaders on the plan to take Kagan down. Check it out.

The Aspen Institute announces a new year-long forum on globalism and democratic values on the internet in light of the China-Google conflict.

In case you missed the news over the weekend, the Tea Party folks go their first genuine GOP scalp: Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT). Bennett is extremely conservative, but occasionally cooperates with Dems on bipartisan legislation. So he’s gone.

The Dems have been struggling with a needlessly self-inflicted wound in Hawaii for months. The special election to succeed Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D) is a plurality three way race, with two Dems and one Republican. Since the Dems are splitting the big Democratic vote it looks like the Republican has a very good shot of winning a plurality. Since the local Dems haven’t been able to get its act together the DCCC has just announced it’s pulling out of the race. Read More

With today’s announcement, appellate lawyer Andrew Pincus, who frequently argues cases before the Supreme Court, joins us again for a Kagan Nomination Live Blog. Here’s his first entry: Why Kagan?

President Obama’s introduction of Elena Kagan to replace the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Watch, starting at 10 ET.