How Much Will Elena Kagan's 'Socialism' Thesis Hurt Her Supreme Court Nomination?

(May 10) -- One of the few potentially compromising documents authored by Elena Kagan had nothing to do with law or any legal decisions. As an undergraduate history major at Princeton University in 1981, Kagan submitted a 156-page senior thesis titled "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933."

According to The New York Times, "the paper examines why, despite the rise of the labor movement, the Socialist Party lost political traction in the United States -- a loss that she attributed to fissures and feuding within the movement. '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,' she wrote." The paper also reports that the thesis was dedicated to her brother Marc, who she said had "involvement in radical causes."

Any hint of socialism, as many political observers will be quick to note, has been a political albatross for several generations now. The definition of socialism and socialist ties is somewhat debatable, but even the implication of socialism can be devastating, politically speaking. See the infamous ouster of Van Jones after Fox News host Glenn Beck's anti-socialist tirades against him last year.

Kagan's thesis adviser, Sean Wilentz, told the Times that her work was not a "defense of socialism," saying she was merely "interested it in it." In the Daily Princetonian, he was even more forceful in denying that Kagan held such views herself: "Elena Kagan is about the furthest thing from a socialist. Period. And always had been. Period."

The nominee hasn't commented publicly on her bygone document and has likely evolved in her political and historical perspectives since then. But the thesis has already prickled a few feathers in the conservative blogosphere. Still, as Media Matters points out, "Republicans did not raise the issue during her confirmation as solicitor general, suggesting that none of them believed that she was actually a socialist."

Will it become a larger issue during the confirmation process? Only time will tell.