On Demand
Back in Court
Monday, October 01, 2007
Jeffrey Toobin, writer for the New Yorker and legal analyst for CNN, and author of The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, analyzes the second year of the Roberts Court.
The Nine is available for purchase at Amazon.com
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I think Thomas was referring to the Paula Jones harassment hearings - not specifically to the Monica incident, although the Jones hearings did ultimately lead to the perjury claims.
What I have never understood about the entire Supreme Court confirmation process is just WHY a politician (e.g. the President) even gets to select the niminee from the start. Would it not be a more fair, unbiased and trustwothy system to have the active members of the bar (primarily sitting justices at all levels) submit a short list of those from thier ranks whom they feel most qualified and experienced from whom the nominee can then be chosen (by the President)?
Admittedly, I disagree almost across the board on Justice Thomas' opinions and was content to chacterize him in my mind as a sell-out to the status-quo system.
However, 60 Minutes' coverage of his roots, upbringing, and challenges he faced while growing up put a more human face on him for me.
What still wreaks of a double-standard mindset is Thomas told the 60 Minutes' interviewer that he doesn't see himself as black. "I'm a man...first, I'm a U.S. citizen...who happens to be black." Going on to say he doesn't define himself based on the color of his skin any more than he does based on his gender. During the interview he expressed how he was angry that he felt he was treated differently at Yale because of his color, etc.
Yet, on the clip of his confirmation testimony regarding the Anita Hill scandal, he delivered a scathing accusation of a "high-tech lynching"--invoking images of lynchings as they occurred in the South after the Civil War. So on the one hand he doesn't like to distinguish himself as a black man, yet when it serves him well, he has played the race card well.
CORRECTION: Booker T. Washington. Not Frederick Douglas.
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