Carrying A Grudge

I haven't read Justice Clarence Thomas's memoir, My Grandfather's Son -- it goes on sale on Monday -- but according to a review in the Washington Post, he doesn't hold back.

Justice Clarence Thomas settles scores in an angry and vivid forthcoming memoir, scathingly condemning the media, the Democratic senators who opposed his nomination to the Supreme Court, and the "mob" of liberal elites and activist groups that he says desecrated his life.

[...]

They are the most extensive comments Thomas has made about Hill since his confirmation. Though he has given numerous speeches since he has been on the court, he has rarely mentioned Hill or spoken in detail about the nomination fight. In the book, Thomas writes that Hill was the tool of liberal activist groups "obsessed" with abortion and outraged because he did not fit their idea of what an African American should believe.

"The mob I now faced carried no ropes or guns," Thomas writes of his hearings. "Its weapons were smooth-tongued lies spoken into microphones and printed on the front pages of America's newspapers.... But it was a mob all the same, and its purpose -- to keep the black man in his place -- was unchanged."

Well, Justice Thomas is entitled to his opinions and his feelings, and I certainly agree that his confirmation hearings in 1991 were not the height of calm and deliberative advice and consent, but in the end Mr. Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court, which could probably be considered a vindication for him. Yet sixteen years later he's still seething, and I can't help but remember all that helpful advice the conservatives were so eager to dole out after a somewhat similar occurrence in 2000: "Move on, get over it, you lost, end of story." And, to his credit, the recipient of that advice, Al Gore, did put his humiliation and excoriation at the hands of the righties behind him. He didn't hole up in some dark garret and brood about the raw deal he got of winning the popular vote but losing the election, and the irony is that one of the people who had a hand in his loss was Clarence Thomas.

Not for nothing does Justice Thomas's continuing grudge make me wonder if somehow it might seep its way into the rulings and decisions he makes on the court. Does he vote with the conservative majority based on the law or does he allow his personal feelings of resentment play a part? Of course his defenders will say he is above that kind of ethical lapse, but he's human, and it's hard to believe that he can completely divorce himself from the simple fact that we are incapable of making decisions or seeing points without the color of our human strengths and failings. I hasten to say that that goes for everyone on the court, including the few remaining liberals. But such outspoken anger bordering on hatred makes you wonder.

It's a pattern among conservatives to carry their grudges forever regardless of whether they win or lose. Robert Bork, who was denied a seat on the Supreme Court in 1987, still makes a living off his contentious hearings and blaming his defeat on the same crowd Justice Thomas does, in spite of the fact that a number of Republicans, including Arlen Specter and John Warner, voted against him. He has since never failed to remind anyone who will listen that he was unfairly treated. Perhaps he was, but given his rather stark opinions on the rights of privacy and his minimalist view of the role of the judiciary (given the chance, it sounds like he would overturn Marbury vs. Madison), it's a very good thing he's not on the Court. But twenty years is a long time to grind an ax and perhaps he should just get over it. I'd give the same advice to Justice Thomas. It wasn't pretty, and I understand the hurt, but you got the job and you can't be fired.

The one thing that conservatives excel at is being the victims and sore winners. It's not pretty, but it does sell books.

Crossposted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.