The Huffington Post reported on August 16, 2008, following the Saddleback interview with then-presidential-candidate Obama, the following:
"I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas," said the presumptive Democratic nominee. "I don't think that he...' the crowd interrupted with applause. 'I don't think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation. Setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretations of a lot of the constitution.'"
Three years later, and we now have Toobin, certainly not a conservative legal thinker, saying:
"In several of the most important areas of constitutional law, Thomas has emerged as an intellectual leader of the Supreme Court. Since the arrival of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., in 2005, and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., in 2006, the Court has moved to the right when it comes to the free-speech rights of corporations, the rights of gun owners, and, potentially, the powers of the federal government; in each of these areas, the majority has followed where Thomas has been leading for a decade or more. Rarely has a Supreme Court Justice enjoyed such broad or significant vindication."
Generally, most might agree that Justice Thomas views the Constitution in a manner which would be somewhat consistent with the following declaration by Thomas Jefferson, America's third President:
"On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." - -Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 12 June 1823
Inasmuch as Justice Thomas over a lifetime, most likely, has immersed himself in study of the writings and speeches of America's Founders, the great fountains of wisdom from which (and from whom) they drew their ideas about liberty, the human tendency to abuse delegated power, and the history of civilization's struggle against tyranny, one understands better his tendency to listen more than to speak, as well as his emergence as an "intellectual leader" on the Court.
As for the value one places on Presidential opinions about "interpretations" of the Constitution, or their personal evaluations of "legal thinkers," then one might need to examine the depth of study of that President and how he/she views the role, reach, and scope of government structured by the Founders' written Constitution for a free society.
One early President, James Madison, who came to be known as the "father" of the Constitution because of his role in the Convention, believed government's beneficial function to be "benign." He said:
"The enviable condition of the people of the United States is often too much ascribed to the physical advantages of their soil & climate .... But a just estimate of the happiness of our country will never overlook what belongs to the fertile activity of a free people and the benign influence of a responsible government." - James Madison
In the Year 2011, with our understanding of the stark and sometimes deadly differences between the quality of being "benign" and of being "malignant" as it pertains to our bodies, we are presented with an almost graphic difference between Madison's understanding of a constitutionally-limited government whose "influence" is "benign," and an understanding which favors enormous and invasive government power.
A logical conclusion to such reasoning might be that President Madison's opinion of Justice Clarence Thomas as "legal thinker" and "jurist" might be vastly different than President Obama's.
Sheesh, having your Constitutional creds dissed by The Won, that's a bad day. That's like Rosie O'Donnell calling you fat or Jeanine Garofolo calling you a skank.
Ah. But Kaegan is. And the "wise latina".