The Bitter Tears of Clarence ThomasStill Whining After All These Years
by ELAINE CASSEL
… It was a somber, self-pitying speech that left many of the thousands of attendees squirming in their seats. Apparently Thomas has only one speech-one that recounts his hard life in Pin Point, Georgia, his "crushing" experience of graduating from Yale Law School (pity the poor man who has to go to Yale) without one offer to work in the law firm of his dreams-a firm in Atlanta or Savannah, Georgia. He refers to this experience as one of his life's great trials and tribulations.
He has no gratitude for John Danforth who gave him a job in the Missouri Attorney General's Office, which then led to his being tapped for the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and then the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and then, of course, to a seat on the Supreme Court-what to any lawyer would be the pinnacle of a career, not to mention a lifetime.
Hellip; Thomas got his breaks in life because others-from his grandfather, to the nuns in his Catholic high school, to the administrators at his college and Yale Law School, to John Danforth, to Bush the first-gave him a break. He cannot give thanks or gratitude, he can only resent. Resent that his color, or so he says, kept him from all that he really wanted--a job in a Georgia law firm. Not being able to recognize what others gave to him, he has nothing to give to others-not from the bench, not from a podium.
Justice Thomas could do us all a huge favor by resigning from the Court that he finds such a burden, getting into his RV that he claims to love so much, and turning over his seat on the bench to someone who at least appreciates the privilege of wielding almost unlimited power as a Supreme Court Justice.
Of course, he is not going to pack up and drive his gas-guzzler into the sunset. Unfortunately for us who care for people who have less than we do, who suffer at the hands of a cruel and selfish government, Thomas will continue to wield his hatred from the bench. And we will continue to be less of a country because he and his partners in meanness, Scalia and Rehnquist, interpret the law to benefit the powerful, the wealthy, and the Republicans that put them there.
