ESSAY: ON THE GORSUCH NOMINATION -- AND REMEMBERING THURGOOD MARSHALL

President Trump has offered us, so far, quite a first 100 days. There has been the political whiplash, after eight years of our first black President, to an almost all-white-male Cabinet. There has been a series of extreme executive orders, which have prompted mass protests in the streets and judicial rebukes. And there has been, almost lost amid all of the manic energy emanating from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch for what appears to be his inevitable seat on the Supreme Court.

With the nation on the brink of what is likely to be a very damaging addition to the High Court, it is tempting, if a bit masochistic, to think back to a very different historic Supreme Court nomination — one that Lyndon Johnson made in 1967. It was another era in which the nation was deeply divided, and changing rapidly, but rather than looking backward to an older America, Johnson looked forward — which he showed when he nominated Thurgood Marshall to be the the first African-American on the Court...Continue reading