Judging Thomas

Ann Coulter has a typically terrific column today on the endemic racism of "enlightened" liberals.

Opponents of affirmative action, for example, have long argued that the program is merely white paternalism springing from an attitude that blacks are not intelligent enough to accomplish anything without white liberal help--what President Bush beautifully called "the soft bigotry of low expectations."

The liberal "intelligentsia" (such as it is) increasingly confirms the accuracy of that suspicion every day. Its latest attack has been on Condoleeza Rice, President Bush's nominee for Secretary of State. It's as if liberals (and the Democrat Party) almost can't help themselves from betraying their racist attitudes. Prominent Democrats have been running around to every microphone they can find saying that Dr. Rice "has not demonstrated great competence" and "doesn't bring much experience or knowledge of the world to this position" (as opposed to, say, that genius Madeleine Albright).

As Coulter points out:

Liberals at least give white Republicans credit for being evil. Rumsfeld is a dangerous warmonger, Paul Wolfowitz is part of an international Jewish conspiracy, Dick Cheney is "Dr. No." But Dr. Rice? She's a dummy.

In fact, after spending the last four years telling us that President Bush was an empty suit, a vessel for neoconservative fantasies of perpetual war, liberals have now found someone who is Bush's puppet: the black chick.

As Ann points out, this is not an isolated phenomenon. It's what liberals routinely do with blacks who refuse to work the Democrat Party plantation:

The late Mary McGrory, a white liberal, called [Supreme Court Justice Antonin] Scalia "a brilliant and compelling extremist" – as opposed to McGrory herself, a garden-variety extremist of average intelligence. But [Clarence] Thomas she dismissed as "Scalia's puppet," quoting another white liberal, Alvin J. Bronstein of the American Civil Liberties Union, to make the point. This is the kind of rhetoric liberals are reduced to when they just can't bring themselves to use the n-word.

Most recently – at least as we go to press – last Sunday Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, had this to say about Justice Clarence Thomas: "I think that he has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. I think that his opinions are poorly written." You'd think Thomas' opinions were written in ebonics.

In the same interview, Reid called Justice Antonin Scalia "one smart guy." He said that although he disagreed with Scalia, his reasoning is "very hard to dispute." Scalia is "one smart guy"; Thomas is the janitor. If Democrats are all going to read from the same talking points, they might want to get someone other than David Duke to write them.

Understand, this is the party line with Democrats--the ultraconservative Scalia is brilliant (but evil), and the ultraconservative Clarence Thomas is his stupid puppet.

In reality, Thomas is a brilliant jurist. He and Scalia have wound up on opposite sides of more than a few cases. Kenneth Starr, in his wonderful little book First Among Equals: The Supreme Court in American Life actually argues that, while Scalia is more flamboyant and entertaining, Thomas is the most original legal thinker on the Court.

But the Democrats wouldn't know any of this, because they don't actually read legal opinions, and they don't read books either, as Coulter notices:

On the Sean Hannity radio show, Democratic pundit Pat Halpin defended Sen. Reid's laughable attack on Thomas by citing Bob Woodward's book "The Brethren," which – according to Halpin – vividly portrays Thomas as a nincompoop.

..."The Brethren" came out a decade before Thomas was even nominated to the Supreme Court. The only black Supreme Court justice discussed in "The Brethren" is Thurgood Marshall. That's one we haven't heard in a while: I just can't tell you guys apart.

There have been exactly two black Supreme Court justices in American history. And as Coulter's excellent column points out, Democrats can't keep them straight. Why do you suppose Halpin got Thomas and Marshall confused? Do you suppose it was because of the ideological viewpoint Thomas and Marshall share?