In the strange world of conservative media it's probably a good idea to always expect the unexpected.

For example, who would have ever thought that in the late spring of 2010, various right-wing media figures would attack civil rights accomplishments and leaders from the 1950s and 60s?

Sadly that's just what we've been seeing.

Last week radio host Rush Limbaugh used Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's praise for former Justice Thurgood Marshall whom she clerked for in 1988 to attack Marshall for his view that the original U.S. Constitution was “defective” because it sanctioned slavery and gender inequality. Furthermore, Limbaugh said Kagan and Marshall look at “me and people like me as the oppressors.”

He wasn't alone.

The very same day, Michael Savage (née Weiner) -- the third highest rated radio host in America -- said “Marshall was an outright communist” who “almost destroyed America” while radio host Monica Crowley said on Fox Business that Kagan's praise of Marshall should raise “red flags.”

Why folks like Limbaugh would be defending slavery is anyone's guess.

The attacks on Marshall were followed this week with broadsides against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Fox Business' John Stossel today called for a repeal of the public accommodations section of the Act in an interview on Fox News about Kentucky GOP Senate candidate Rand Paul's recent comments on the issue.

Stossel further claimed that eventually free markets would have prevailed over discrimination saying, “competition would have cleaned the clocks of the people who didn't serve most customers.” It was a notion soundly rejected by Andrew Grant-Thomas, deputy director of the Ohio State's Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, who characterized Stossel's comments as “silly,” adding, “Market forces hadn't exactly made anti-black discrimination disappear during the several centuries before the Civil Rights Act.”

Such is the sad state of the conservative media.

When they aren't attacking such accomplishments and leaders, they are busy completely distorting civil rights history. Like Fox News' Glenn Beck who said today that “Civil rights marchers” weren't “crying for social justice.” What's next? Neil Armstrong didn't walk on the moon?

So emboldened have they been by the lack of accountability they've faced from the traditional media over the past 15 months for their incendiary attacks on Obama and Democrats, they've now turned their guns on America's civil rights leaders and accomplishments.

It really is quite sick.

Related:

• EXCLUSIVE: Expert criticizes Stossel's “ahistorical” remarks on Civil Rights Act
• Stossel calls for repeal of public accommodations section of Civil Rights Act
• Thurgood Marshall College Fund pushes back against Limbaugh's attacks on former Justice, endorses Kagan
• Savage: “Thurgood Marshall was an outright communist” who “almost destroyed America”
• Crowley says Kagan's Thurgood Marshall citation should raise “red flags”; compares Kagan to Miers
• Why is Rush Limbaugh defending slavery?
• Limbaugh attacks Thurgood Marshall for view that original Constitution -- which allowed slavery -- was “defective”
• Limbaugh: Elena Kagan and Thurgood Marshall look at “me and people like me as the oppressors”