Posted on 05/18/2020 1:19:17 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
He was the subject of a recent book, “The Enigma of Clarence Thomas,” which led to a flurry of articles and book reviews on his life and legal thought. A new biographical documentary, made by the conservative filmmaker Michael Pack, airs Monday on PBS. For the project, the justice spoke to filmmakers for 30 hours — an astounding feat for a jurist who once went 10 years without asking a question from the bench.
“He would have never said, ‘Gee whiz, I should be an icon,’” said Helgi Walker, a lawyer at the firm Gibson Dunn who clerked for Justice Thomas in 1995 and 1996. “But life is long, and it’s amazing how things can turn out sometimes.”
The line had an impact on Carol M. Swain, a former law professor and conservative political commentator who recently watched the film and said she saw the 1991 hearings in the context of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s in 2018. “It’s not just an agenda to derail a nomination, it’s an effort to destroy a person,” she said.
Justice Thomas grew up impoverished in a Gullah-speaking community in Georgia and spent his youth as a black nationalist radical in the mold of Malcolm X before reluctantly accepting a job with a Republican attorney general in Missouri, the only job offer he was given, he explains in the film. He voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980, in what he called “a giant step for a black man.”
If a guy who’s on the Supreme Court can be said to have been “passed by.”
Justice Thomas embodies everything that is great about America. He’s a true patriot, and just about the only thing Bush 41 ever did right.
He should finish out his career as Trump’s last atty General. Hearings again with no outcome doubt.
He has been a hero of mine since the spring of 1982 when I had my first opportunity to sit down and talk with him for an hour and a half... My first (and lasting) impression was that he was a “man’s man”...
Clarence Thomas was lynched by Biden and the Democrats. He more than paid for his spot on the Court.
Excellent documentary.
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