Lawn jockeys
I actively avoid reading Uncle Clarence's decisions because the last time I read one it was just so… weak. Thomas stands as the ultimate indictment of "affirmative action" programs, excessive politics in the judicial nomination process (though I have a feeling his example will be surpasseed with the next one) and the
damage a lack of community causes in the Black population.
Ms. Dowd's editorial doesn't inspire me to dive into that twisted mess of a mind again.
Could Thomas Be Right?By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
What a cunning man Clarence Thomas is.
He knew that he could not make a powerful legal argument against racial preferences, given the fact that he got into Yale Law School and got picked for the Supreme Court thanks to his race.
So he made a powerful psychological argument against what the British call "positive discrimination," known here as affirmative action.
Justice Thomas's dissent in the 5-4 decision preserving affirmative action in university admissions has persuaded me that affirmative action is not the way to go.
The dissent is a clinical study of a man who has been driven barking mad by the beneficial treatment he has received.
It's poignant, really. It makes him crazy that people think he is where he is because of his race, but he is where he is because of his race.
Other justices rely on clerks and legal footnotes to help with their opinions; Justice Thomas relies on his id, turning an opinion on race into a therapeutic outburst.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 6/25/2003 10:27:14 AM |
