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

Comments

[Martskers]

When I heard him say he didn't think of himself as a black man, I knew what I was dealing with right there, and his history has proved it.

Thomas is a self-loathing black man, who has gone to great lengths in his personal and professional life to put as much distance as he can between what he is (and has been) and what he wants to be. He is angry and embittered that life dealt him a black hand, and he is bound and determined to take out his anger on the other members of his race to show them he's not really one of them.

His grandfather, and Justice Marshall, are both spinning in their graves.

[Poboy]

In a departing news conference a reporter asked Justice Marshall about Clarence Thomas who was being considered to replace him, Marshall stated "there is no difference between a black snake and a white snake. They both bite equally."

Prescient words indeed!

[spunkster]

we all have much to weep over - one wonders if the damage done can ever be reversed. it's hard to step away from despair.

[redfrog]

Go for a walk. Do something unexpectedly nice for a stranger. Spend time with a friend and laugh today. Reach in, reach out. It is important to step away if you are feeling despair, Spunks. (Love your nic.)

[Uselessboy]

Aw what's your gripe? We can turn the Court around easy as pie, 25 years or so from now.

Meanwhile given reasonable health, these 5 are the authors of the Constitution.

Enjoy!

[GenXLiberal]

What I would like to know is why the majority of American citizens have to put up with Supreme Court Justices until they resign.I would like to know if there is anything us citizens can do to remove these activist judges on the right. We should also go after the brothels that raise money for the Republicon junta judges aka Evangelical churches, and the such for tax evasion. Hit these scumbags with everything we got. They're our enemies not just for stealing elections but for shredding our precious constitution which comes before everything else! You can say what you want about me, but this crap wouldn't stand over in Europe. These people are traitors and deserve the contempt of the American people!

[Lance734]

There's nothing any of us can do to remove any federal judge (including Sup Ct justices). The Constitution grants them life tenure (although they can be impeached). Only a constitutional amendment can change that.

Now the idea behind life tenure on the federal bench is a good one (to insulate them from whims of political fancy), but in certain cases, I understand people's frustration where they feel a really awful judge or justice will terrorize them forever. But absent constitutional amendment, there's nothing to be done.

[baylaw73]

True. And do people not understand that is was conservatives making the SAME arguments when the Court was ruling in ways liberals like? I happen to like those rulings myself. However, it is dishonest to applaud one direction and then demand changes when the pendulum swings the other way, absent indications of impeachable conduct.

[desertdweller]

If Mr. Thomas is so disenchanted with his appointment, if it was such an empty victory, why doesn't he simply retire? Why does he wait 16 years to try and vindicate himself?

[osprey]

and the answer is: MONEY and POWER

[dsbsh]

Power, not really money. Supreme Court justices make far less than partners in moderate to large private sector firms, and they're limited in what they can receive in speaking fees.

[astockton]

The Constitution does not specify the number of justices which the Supreme Court is supposed to comprise. Maybe it's time to revive FDR's court-packing proposal and add more seats,

[live by the golden rule]

what are you talking about? Look at who still is in the White House. The one thing they haven't pulled yet.....

[youcannotbeserious]

after watching him on 60 minutes I came away thinking he can't be what everyone says he is,seemingly unsympathetic to his minority bretheren and votes consistently with the most conservative justices while at the same time acknowledging his humble jim crow path to where he is today.

How he justifies it remains a mystery to me especially after he claims his grandfather told him never to look a white woman in the eye and he marries one. (:

[cynicalidealist]

I STILL believe Anita Hill. I do hope that the current professor of political science at Brandeis will be given the opportunity to expose Thomas as a LIAR. I'd like to see Gwen Eyefill or Linda Elberbee sit down with her. Or Keith Olbermann. -CI

[Tommie27]

When Thomas was asked if Anita Hill was lying He had to glance away from the interviewer when he said yes.The classic gesture of a LIAR!!!

[edpaz]

I am not a supporter of Thomas. However, your statement that he looked away from the interviewer when asked if Anita Hill lied is not evident to me. I just watched the interview again. Steve Kroft never asked that question, and Thomas always made direct eye contact throughout the entire interview.
I just wanted to make that point since I too, am interested in finding every fault I can about Thomas.

[MarinCOUSA]

Revulsion at Thomas nomination, Indeed.

Until, these jackboots gave us Bush v. Gore, I thought Bush's nomination of Thomas was the most vulgar and cynical (not the most evil, mind you- that's reserved for Tricky Dicks Southern Strategy) political stunt in my life.

[Steve Petrisky]

And yet, true to form, the Democrats opened their legs and aborted their principles to vote for Uncle Thomas, Roberts and Alito. Nobody to blame but themselves. Some of us recollect the importance of the '04 election as the key to the next Supreme Court. In fact, Bush announced in 2000 while campaigning his intention to stack the federal courts. Seems we (Diebold) gave him a mandate to do that in '04. Here comes the next Attorney General. Guess how Democrats will vote?
With legs open and eyes closed.

[MAGLATINA]

I WATCHED THE HEARINGS..­. AND THAT IS THE REASON WHY I WILL NEVER, EVER VOTE FOR BIDEN...

[daddysboy]

These judges were nominated by the republican party members. The subsequent confirmation by the rest of the government is irrelevant; you can only block confirmations for so long and you run the risk of being given even poorer choices the longer you hold out. Stop blaming the victim and start asking why these individuals were chosen in the first place and who chose them.

[rmwarnick]

Whoop-dee-damn-doo indeed. The dumbest man ever to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

[jeffq]

A bit of a problem with a black man in authority, do we? Probably not happy with Condi either. Give it up. We freed the slaves.

[BooBooBear]

[zigzag1]

2 hours of whining on 60 Minutes. Whoopdeee dam doo!

[desertdweller]

Clarence Thomas on 60 minutes - still lying after all these years...

[MrLion]

Justice Thomas won't participate in oral argument, which is like a running back refusing to pass-block or a batter refusing to run out ground balls to the infield. He ought to take a pay cut--or better yet, hang 'em up.