I am liking Justice Thomas...CBS 60 Minutes

[Pabster]

All the left-wing hatred for Thomas in this thread alone has inspired me to buy his new book! :laugh:

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: Pabster
All the left-wing hatred for Thomas in this thread alone has inspired me to buy his new book! :laugh:

Pabster, I get the feeling that's where 99% of your political motivation comes from. If you didn't have liberals to piss off, I'm not sure how you'd come up with your opinions 😀

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: Pabster
All the left-wing hatred for Thomas in this thread alone has inspired me to buy his new book! :laugh:

Pabster, I get the feeling that's where 99% of your political motivation comes from. If you didn't have liberals to piss off, I'm not sure how you'd come up with your opinions 😀

:laugh:

But seriously. Whenever the left makes such a fuss about a book, it must be worth reading.

 

[Stoneburner]

if the book is anything like his opinions, then it is definitely not worth reading.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: Pabster

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: Pabster
All the left-wing hatred for Thomas in this thread alone has inspired me to buy his new book! :laugh:

Pabster, I get the feeling that's where 99% of your political motivation comes from. If you didn't have liberals to piss off, I'm not sure how you'd come up with your opinions 😀

:laugh:

But seriously. Whenever the left makes such a fuss about a book, it must be worth reading.

I think there is a fine line. Good, well argued points tend to piss off the opposition. But so do unsupported personal attacks and pointless name calling. The key is to tell the difference between the two, otherwise you'll be confusing Ann Coulter with high minded debate.

 

[wiin]

You must be talking about yourself. Thanks for letting us know the real you.

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
It is very common among those who hate themselves to want to burnish and polish their false egos with the notion that their egos did the achievements and not because the ego got any special help. The more deeply the self hate needs to be denied the greater will the playing of this game.

Thomas is where he is by accident, not personal merit, just as we all are. To win for real is all in attitude. A positive attitude will always rise if there is a road up and, if not, it will not matter because, regardless of ones station in life, one will have gratitude and the joy of living. The kingdom of heaven is within you.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: wiin

You must be talking about yourself. Thanks for letting us know the real you.

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
It is very common among those who hate themselves to want to burnish and polish their false egos with the notion that their egos did the achievements and not because the ego got any special help. The more deeply the self hate needs to be denied the greater will the playing of this game.

Thomas is where he is by accident, not personal merit, just as we all are. To win for real is all in attitude. A positive attitude will always rise if there is a road up and, if not, it will not matter because, regardless of ones station in life, one will have gratitude and the joy of living. The kingdom of heaven is within you.

You are very welcome. You didn't think, did you, that I could know who you are without knowing me.

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: Pabster

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: Pabster
All the left-wing hatred for Thomas in this thread alone has inspired me to buy his new book! :laugh:

Pabster, I get the feeling that's where 99% of your political motivation comes from. If you didn't have liberals to piss off, I'm not sure how you'd come up with your opinions 😀

:laugh:

But seriously. Whenever the left makes such a fuss about a book, it must be worth reading.

What the "fuss" is about is that:

1) After all these years, Thomas continues to feel so much outrage about his confirmation experience.

2) That Thomas's view of what transpired at the hearings is so at odds with the reality of the situation.

3) That Thomas's version of events is so at odds with the truth. See, for example, today's Washington Post column by Ruth Marcus. Here's an excerpt that addresses the allegations that Thomas was a serial harasser and had strange tastes in pornography:

Ruth Marcus column

. . .
"I felt sure that I had never said or done anything to her that was even remotely inappropriate," he writes, and, if he had, "she would have complained loudly and instantly, not waited for a decade to make her displeasure known." For his part, Thomas describes himself as "one of the least likely candidates imaginable for such a charge."

Here is some of the evidence Thomas omits:

First, Hill did not wait 10 years to complain about his behavior. Susan Hoerchner, a Yale Law School classmate of Hill's, described how she complained of sexual harassment while working for Thomas, saying the EEOC chairman had "repeatedly asked her out . . . but wouldn't seem to take 'no' for an answer." Ellen Wells, a friend, said Hill had come to her, "deeply troubled and very depressed," with complaints about Thomas's inappropriate behavior. John Carr, a lawyer, said that Hill, in tears, confided that "her boss was making sexual advances toward her." American University law professor Joel Paul said Hill had told him in 1987 that she had left the EEOC because she had been sexually harassed by her supervisor.

Second, Hill was not the only former subordinate of Thomas's with complaints. Former EEOC employee Angela Wright described how Thomas pressured her to date him, showed up uninvited at her apartment and asked her breast size. "Clarence Thomas would say to me, 'You know you need to be dating me. . . . You're one of the finest women I have on my staff," Wright told Senate investigators.

Wright's account was corroborated by Rose Jourdain, a former speechwriter who, like Wright, was dismissed by Thomas. Jourdain said Wright had complained that she was "increasingly nervous about being in his presence alone" because of comments "concerning her figure, her body, her breasts, her legs."

Another former Thomas employee, Sukari Hardnett, said of his office, "If you were young, black, female and reasonably attractive, you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female."

Third, as Merida and Fletcher found, some of the behavior Hill complained about resonated with episodes from Thomas's past. Hill described an episode in which Thomas, drinking a soda, asked, "Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?" James Millet, a college classmate of Thomas's, recalled "an almost identical episode" at Holy Cross. "Pubic hair was one of the things he talked about," another classmate said. Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson, in "Strange Justice," found two others who recalled a pubic hair-Coke can comment at the EEOC.

Similarly, Thomas had a well-known taste for the kind of extreme pornography Hill said he brought up with her. "Listening to her, it was as if I was listening to the guy I knew speak," said law school classmate Henry Terry. Washington lawyer Fred Cooke saw Thomas, while EEOC chairman, checking out a triple-X video of "The Adventures of Bad Mama Jama."

Thomas dismisses these claims as the workings of a mob -- in pinstripes instead of white robes -- seeking to "keep the black man in his place." He may have convinced himself of this. The record suggests otherwise.

4. Some of Thomas's statements at the confirmation hearings were so patently false as to be laughable. For example, he testified, under oath, that he had no recollection of ever discussing Roe v. Wade in law school, no recollection of ever thinking about Roe v. Wad, and no personal opinion on Roe v. Wade:

A small excerpt from

Clarence Thomas Confirmation testimony

JUDGE THOMAS:
Senator, your question to me was, did I debate the contents of Roe versus Wade, the outcome in Roe versus Wade, do I have this day an opinion, a personal opinion, on the outcome in Roe versus Wade, and my answer to you is that I do not.

I ask you, does ANY adult U.S. citizen with an IQ above a turnip NOT have an opinion on Roe v. Wade?

5) Right-wing zealots think Thomas is wonderful!

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: shira
I ask you, does ANY adult U.S. citizen with an IQ above a turnip NOT have an opinion on Roe v. Wade?

Considering that a vast majority can't locate Iraq on a map, it wouldn't surprise me a bit.

The issues some of us have so much passion about are afterthoughts (if thoughts at all) to someone else.