Mr. Justice Whoop-dee-damn-doo
We're working our way backward through the '90s. With OJ Simpson again on the national stage, it was inevitable that Clarence Thomas would follow. The Thomas confirmation hearings were a milestone in real-time mass-mediated American psychodrama. Before the Juice, there was Long Dong Silver. Before the bloody glove, there was the pubic-hairy Coke can. Before the suicidal white Bronco driver, there was the victimized black conservative martyr. Before there was OJ's jury nullification, there was Thomas' "high-tech lynching," which acquitted him right onto the Supreme Court.
I still recall being so obsessed by the Judiciary Committee hearings that I listened to them through an earphone while pushing a baby stroller through the mall. I remember watching Arlen Specter and Orrin Hatch hard at work, attempting to destroy Anita Hill, and finally understanding what the Salem Witch Trials must have been like. I remember being torn between awe at Chairman Joe Biden's pomposity and amazement at the goings-on in his scalp. I remember calling my friend Jack Rosenthal, then the editor of the editorial page of the New York Times, nearly every day, haranguing him to stiffen the Senate's opposition. To this day, I recall my revulsion at George H.W. Bush's cynically gleeful, preposterous attempt to frame the Thomas nomination as a filling of the Thurgood Marshall seat.
It turns out, of course, that the alarming character traits Anita Hill observed in her boss Clarence Thomas were nothing compared to the nutcase judicial temperament he has since revealed. At his confirmation hearing, Thomas -- like Marshall before him, and Roberts and Alito after him -- paid tribute to stare decisis, the importance of precedent in guiding Supreme Court decisions. But no less an authority than arch-conservative fellow Associate Justice Antonin Scalia told Thomas' biographer, Ken Foskett, that Thomas "doesn't believe in stare decisis, period." If you think nutcase is too strong a word to summarize that view, listen again to Scalia, as quoted in this Terry Gross interview with Jeff Toobin about his new Supreme Court book, The Nine:
Mr. TOOBIN: Clarence Thomas is not just the most conservative member of the Rehnquist court or the Roberts court. He's the most conservative justice to serve on the court since the 1930s. If you take what Thomas says seriously, if you read his opinions, particularly about issues like the scope of the federal government, he basically thinks that the entire work of the New Deal is unconstitutional. He really believes in a conception of the federal government that hasn't been supported by the justices since Franklin Roosevelt made his appointments to the court. You know, I went to a speech that Justice Scalia gave at a synagogue here in New York a couple of years ago, and someone asked him, `What's the difference between your judicial philosophy and Justice Thomas?' I thought a very good question. And Scalia talked for a while and he said, `Look, I'm a conservative. I'm a texturalist. I'm an originalist. But I'm not a nut.' And I thought that...
GROSS: Meaning that he thinks Thomas is one.
Mr. TOOBIN: Well, that was certainly the implication.
GROSS: Mm-hmm.
Mr. TOOBIN: It was pretty amazing. I mean, Thomas is well outside the mainstream, even of the conservatives on the court.
The Roberts-Scalia-Thomas-Alito-and-sometimes-Kennedy fivesome on the Court today is the closest the country has come to the domination of the third branch of government by the same ideology that gave us the Bush administration and its Congressional and Fourth Estate enablers. If Justice Stevens can hang on, and if Democrats can nominate and confirm his successor, there is a chance that the Constitution can continue to rely on the better angels of Justice Kennedy's nature. But even so, I fear that the first Monday in October has lost an essential element of its grandeur for years to come. When Justice Souter wept after the Bush v. Gore decision, he was not only mourning the naked politicization of justice; he was anticipating the tragic abrogation of the Constitution that we have experienced in the seven years since. No reaction to that silent coup is more appallingly prescient than what Justice Thomas now tells us in his memoir was his reaction when his wife came to him in his bath to say that the Senate had confirmed him 52 to 48: "Whoop-dee-damn-doo."
Follow Marty Kaplan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/martykaplan
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The Court has had some outstanding Justices over the years. It has also had its share of midgets. Clarence Thomas is one of those midgets!
We could all be like Ann Coulter and hope someone poisons Alito's, Thomas's and Robert's tea but I think wishing harm on another human being because of political differences is a terrible thing to do so I will leave that to those fine conservative christians who just cant seem to get enough blood. Ann Coulter...
Justice Thomas has a serious case of Stockholm syndrome. He is now licking the hand that beat and oppressed him.
Scary stuff- this is a must read for everyone - the Court went their way while everyone was asleep at the wheel!
The idea that Thomas was supposed to replace Thurgood Marshall makes me nauseated.
Clarence Thomas is an excellent Justice. He's a to testament to the fact that hard work and not government programs results in success.
http://joh
What makes you think this man is either excellent, or a testament to anyone? He is the SCOTUS mute who relies on clerks to do his writing. As for the alter of stare decisis, why are the justices committed to overturning the Roe V Wade precedent? And to the next writer, Hill didn't lie about the coke can. Thomas lied and Arlen Specter swore to it.
So you think Thomas(long dong silver) didn't have any government help with his education? That would be hard to believe.
JohnsPaulus has made a profound statement. So I will add another one equally profound - the earth is flat.
Well, I think the dittoheads are in their last throes. There certainly have been a lot of these "faith-based" comments posted with no attempt at a reasoned argument. Just throw out a (really lame) talking point and well, I don't know what they expect.
It's really kind of sad that there these sort of minds out there.
What can you say to such a knucklehead?
yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. But I think he had government help with his education. Also, Anita Hill took a polygraph and passed it but Thomas refused to take one. One guess as to why.
Poor little Anita Hill. She was so harrassed that she followed Thomas from job to job.
Before OJ and Thomas, a criminal defendant could actually be found not guilty in a trial on serious charges. I could actually win most of my suppression hearings. OJ ruined juries ever since. I have to prove my client is innocent beyond a reasonable doubt unless the charges are relatively minor. The SCOTUS since Thomas was appointed has overruled virtually all of a criminal defendant's constitutional rights. There are so many exceptions to the exclusionary rule and the fourth amendment that we have no privacy rights left. Thomas is just a stupid rightard. Scalia, Roberts, and Alito are dangerous fascists with way too much power. They should be impeached and/or shipped off to Guantanamo. The Court appointed Junior president w/o Roberts and Alito. It's scary to imagine what they are capable of deciding now. Corporatists rule the USA!!! Wake up America!!!
60 minutes interview confirmed it - Thomas is so self absorbed and small minded, he should never have been appointed to the SCOTUS.
Hope he didn't think that interview was going to change things. His grandfather would be ashamed.
The Judicial Branch has become powereful because the Legislative doesn't have the political ability to do their job and choose politics over policy. As a result, any progress has to be dictated by lawsuits filed in the courts.
By default, this makes the Executive Branch even more powerful, because they have to power to appoint officials to the bureaucracy and judges to the courts.
We no longer have equal balance of powers, and everyone should be worried.
For the first time in history, Congress did not pass a budget in 2007, choosing politics instead, they just continued the government under a resolution. Looks like they will do it again in 2008. This is no longer governance, and our blooming debt and expenditures are no longer under evern modest budgetary control.
This is a wonk's point of view and gets a bit arrid at this altitude, who out there in the blogosphere even knows or cares how federal budgeting works?
When we cede our elected officials to a ceremonial role, they reneg on what was designed to represent our local interests, and is the beginning of tyranny.
Maybe we have to know what tyranny tastes like before we actually care, but by then, it may already be too late.
Clarence Thomas=Thurgood Marshall is FlavaFlav=Colin Powell
Clarence Thomas, quite appropriate I'd say, is
is the principal reason that the moron runs this country. Remember election 2000?..Thi
No, he was never a swing vote. Sandra Day O'Connor was responsible for that swing vote. Clarence has been consistently pro reich.
Perhaps Hillary should appoint Anita Hill.
Hmmm. I was begining to think that maybe Hillary might not be a good idea, but just the thought of this makes me think we might survive 15 more months of the looney tune regime. That should be part of the Democratic platform. Anita Hill for the Supreme Court.
I heard about 20 minutes of Justice Thomas this AM while driving to work. Trying to be fair here...
The interview was all background and softball questions by long-time acquaintance Armstrong Williams (?), but I was struck by how self-absorbed Thomas was.
His life experiences affected his self-view much more than his world-view. His vision of the future is acceptance of the past.
While he was philosophical about his experiences growing up as a black man in America, and as a former Catholic seminarian, I did not hear anything about how those experiences inspired him to help others. Instead he emphasized how he learned to let go of anger, stop dwelling on the negatives -- in segregation, of all things -- etc.
His apocryphal moment came after being at a big demonstration (riot?, I forgot), he passed a church and was overcome with a sense of calm, and acceptance of fate.
Not once did I hear him say, "These experiences inspired me to fight for justice for those who had been treated unjustly." Nope. More like, "People just have to let it go."
Religiousl
Clearly, from the reviews of Thomas's book, he only fakes the zen sh*t for patsy interviews. Inside, he's a bitter and fatalistic man. Give Scalia two votes and send Thomas to anger management.
One thing comes up in every blog and that is every branch of government needs immediate overhall. It will be a very long process if it ever begins. Maybe, like Rome, we need to fall to rise better and stronger.
I agree that the goverment branch balancing act
needs serious re-adjustments, and the prognosis is indeed poor; especially when you ally America's
hopes with that of a fallen Rome.
That civilization, as far as I know, surely did not rise again.
Anyone taking bets on our civilization's mimicking Lazarus?
Anita Hill... I guess you still don't question her character. Nutjob. Where is she now? Only 24% of the public believed her.
And the public knows how much? About anything? Polls are reliable beginning when?
Supreme court judges should not be appointed for life. Lifespan was a lot shorter when it was determined they should serve for life unless they voluntarily retired. The constitution should be amended to change that. I realize that with age comes wisdom, but if someone doesn't have wisdom to begin with, there is nothing to grow. Clarence Thomas is a perfect example - it wouldn't matter if he were purple or green. He's a bitter fool and all persons responsible for his seating are fools. When you have corrupt presidents appointing corrupt and single-minded supremes for life, we are in a huge pile of manure.
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