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The U.S. Senate bills itself as the world's greatest
deliberative body,
a distinction perhaps first earned
in medieval times by the Vatican College of Cardinals
during a debate over whether Adam had a navel.
Why do senators bother asking Clarence Thomas about Roe v. Wade? Even George Bush is capable of keeping at least one campaign promise, and the 1988 Republican platform called for appointing judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade.
(However, it is amazing indeed that Thomas has no
opinion
on abortion. He may be the only sentient adult
in America who doesn't have an opinion on Roe v. Wade. The
next time you're at a cocktail party or in line at the
supermarket, see if you can find anyone who doesn't have an
opinion on a major judicial issue. If you do, notify the
White House immediately; you've just spotted a potential
Supreme Court justice or at the least, a juror for the
Noriega trial.)
Another criticism of Thomas, implied by the opposition
of the NAACP and kindred lobbies with their allies in the
U.S. Senate, is that Thomas is to replace Thurgood
Marshall, the first black justice, and Thomas isn't really
black
enough because he opposes affirmative action,
minority contractor set-asides, quotas and the like.
In other words, there are attitudes that are expected of an African-American, and Thomas isn't entitled to his own opinions. That's blatant racism; it's the same as expecting Clarence Thomas, because of the color of his skin, to enjoy watermelon and tap-dancing, rather than accepting him as an individual who can form his own opinions.
From what I have read of Thomas's views, he appears more Libertarian than Republican, for he is suspicious of government, and seems aware that governments generally use their power to oppress, rather than to liberate. He should be a welcome adversary to Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who believes that the police can do no wrong and that there is no such thing as an illegal search.
But there remains the racial issue. Someone prominent --
I wish I could remember who -- pointed out that the
important thing is that there be at least one justice who's
been called nigger,
because then there is at least
one person in our power structure who is personally aware
of the difference between American theory and American
practice.
To that I say amen. To round out the Supreme Court, we
should also have an honest person whose assets were seized
by a zealous U.S. attorney in need of headlines, someone
whose family died in the gas-tank explosion of an old Ford
Pinto, a Vietnam veteran suffering from Agent Orange, a
widow who lost her savings to Charles Keating, a
Japanese-American whose parents were hauled off to an
American concentration camp in 1942, a vindicated defendant
who had to suffer years of discovery and depositions in a
baseless lawsuit, someone who's been falsely arrested and
beaten in the process, and an Indian who can no longer live
on land that was his as long as the grass grows and the
rivers flow.
Those nine people, rather than a collection of Ivy League law-school products who have never seen less than $75 an hour, should be the ultimate arbiters of what is fair and just in this country. Thomas started out in a sharecropper's shack and he has been knocked around by a society which often says one thing and does another. He's eminently qualified.
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