Posted by Eugene Volokh:
<a
href="http://bluemassgroup.typepad.com/blue_mass_group/2005/01/dems_need_to_cl.html";>David
Kravitz on Justice Thomas</a>:
A very good [1]post by a liberal former Supreme Court clerk and
current appellate lawyer; here are a few excerpts (go to the whole
post for the full story):
Dems need to clean up their act on Clarence Thomas . . .
Unfortunately, there is an ugly undercurrent in the debate over
Justice Thomas, fueled by the ill-advised comment by Senate
minority leader-elect Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that Thomas is an
"embarrassment to the Supreme Court" and that his opinions are
"poorly written" (see our earlier post here for more on Reid).
Frankly, I don't see what Reid is talking about -- Thomas's
opinions seem to me no better or worse written than anyone else's
on the Court, and calling him an "embarrassment" without further
explanation is just, well, embarrassing. A group of conservative
African-Americans has called upon Reid to apologize for his
"racially-insensitive" remarks, and the conservative commentariat
has been having a field day proffering Reid's comments as evidence
of pervasive "liberal racism." . . .
[L]et's be clear: Thomas is a smart, creative thinker -- he is not
a "Scalia clone" -- and he has staked out reasonably clear and
consistent positions on many important legal issues. Democrats,
particularly those in the Senate, need to get that through their
sometimes frustratingly thick skulls and deal with it.
Make no mistake: I am no fan of Justice Thomas's jurisprudence, and
the only reason I'd want to see him as Chief is because I think
he'd be less effective (for reasons already stated) than some of
the other candidates out there. . . . But to demean him with terms
like "an embarrassment to the Supreme Court" (especially while
simultaneously praising Scalia as a "smart guy" who might make a
good Chief) plays right into the hands of those who think that all
Democrats are hypocrites. Democrats should know better. It is
neither morally acceptable nor smart politics to treat Justice
Thomas with anything other than the respect that any other serious
contender for Chief Justice would receive.
References
1.
http://bluemassgroup.typepad.com/blue_mass_group/2005/01/dems_need_to_cl.html
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