Who is the stupidest, laziest, most ignorant, and meanspirited U.S. Supreme Court Justice of all time?
That’s right: It’s our own Clarence Thomas. And that’s his good side! He is also a lying, cheating, crook. But worst of all, he’s a racist!
No, no, no, no! He doesn’t hate the white folk. He just loves them to death – especially the super-rich guys who take him on million-dollar vacations every year. The fact that they have business before the Court is just a coincidence, and never ever affects the way he votes.
But those pesky Black kids who had been getting into college through affirmative action programs? Well, he voted to put a stop to that pernicious practice.
The Worst Supreme Court Justice
Of course, Justice Thomas did get into Yale Law School by the grace of affirmative action. But that was then and now is now.
Thomas is the guy who climbs the ladder all the way up to the Supreme Court, and then yanks the ladder away so young minority women and men will never have the same opportunities that he enjoyed.
Thomas was utterly unqualified for every government job he ever held – but he was eminently unqualified to serve on the Supreme Court. Unlike virtually every other promising young Black, Thomas found his own personal rabbi. John Danforth was then the Missouri Attorney General. He later served three terms as a U.S. Senator, and helped Thomas get jobs which demanded skills and experience far beyond what he brought to the table.
You probably never heard of the Peter Principle. It predicts that employees will rise to their level of incompetence. If you perform well, you’re promoted. But after two or three promotions, you don’t have the skills needed to perform well at your new job. You have been promoted to your level of incompetence and will not get any more promotions.
But Thomas, with generous assists from Danforth, was able to rise to his level of incompetence at virtually every job he ever held. By the time he ascended to the Supreme Court, there was absolutely no way he could possibly function. Luckily, during the chaotic televised Senatorial hearings about accusations of his sexual harassment of Anita Hill, not one Senator asked him even one question about the law. Indeed, Thomas refused to answer any questions during a process he termed a “high tech lynching.”
So now, here is the question I would have proposed: “Mr. Thomas, I’d like you to select any Supreme Court case – any one at all – and just summarize it. And I’ll sweeten the proposition by offering you one million dollars if you just tried.”
Would he have taken me up on my offer? Your guess is as good as mine.
Silence Is Golden
The main thing the Justices do when hearing a case is to ask the lawyers representing both sides a whole lot of questions – many of them dealing with challenging legal analytics. In fairness, perhaps some of the Justices occasionally seem to be trying to show off their knowledge of the law – which, of course is quite impressive. The process is known as oral argumentation.
Thomas, to his credit, realized immediately, that he risked making a complete jackass of himself if he asked any questions, since he would have run the risk of being found out to have less than stellar knowledge of the law. Better to be thought a fool, than to open one’s mouth and prove it.
They say that silence is golden, so Thomas wisely remained silent. Over the last hundred years – and probably longer – every Justice actively engaged in interchanges with the attorneys on both sides of a case. Thomas actually went more than ten years without asking a single question. It was surely the smartest thing he had ever done.
What was the excuse for his strict radio silence? Well, it turns out that he did not begin learning English until he was six. OK. He certainly participated in his classes at Yale Law School. President Joe Biden is a lifelong stutterer, but you still can’t shut the guy up!
Now that we’ve covered the “good” side of Thomas, we’ll move on to his bad side. This includes his lyin’ ‘n cheatin’ ways.
Perhaps that’s a little harsh. He didn’t exactly lie about all those gifts from his superrich admirers. He just never said anything about them, and never bothered reporting them to Internal Revenue.
And he never exactly cheated either, when he failed to recuse himself from cases in which either he, his wife, or his superrich benefactors had a stake. At best, it could be said that he had exercised exceedingly poor judgment.
Well, nobody’s perfect! And Thomas would probably be among the first to admit that he certainly wasn’t.
Did Thomas ever accept a bribe? Or, perhaps, sell some of his votes? No one has been able to prove any of this, but his behavior certainly makes you wonder.
Legal historians will surely rate Thomas as one of the most incompetent and corrupt Justices in our nation’s history. Indeed, maybe the most incompetent and corrupt.
So, we need to ask two very direct questions: Why is this man still a sitting Justice? What can be done to remove him from the Court? Well, the jury of public opinion is still out. I’ll send you a memo when they’re about to reveal their decision.
