Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas

When re-reading this marvelously researched, reported, and written account of Clarence Thomas's life and his controversial battle for confirmation as an associate justice to the U.S. Supreme Court, it was breathtaking to revisit a time and place in the nation's capital not so long ago in which George W. Bush appears NOWHERE in the text or in its index.As we enter election season, this book is well worth reading (or re-reading) as a cautionary tale about what kind of Supreme Court justices are likely to be added to the nation's highest court as the current justices retire if George W. Bush is elected.Clarence Thomas comes off vividly as a sullen benefactor of affirmative action at school after school, who turned on that very institution after he had benefited handsomely from an education capped by graduation from Yale Law School. David Brock has since recanted his writing of "The Real [sic] Anita Hill." Witnesses to Thomas's his office behavior whose testimony might have been exceedingly damaging were never allowed to speak publicly until interviewed for "Strange Justice."And relatively early in Thomas's career, while serving in the Missouri state attorney general's office under John C. Danforth, "Thomas liked to taunt another member of the office, who was prim and painfully shy, by making outrageous, gross, and at times off-color remarks. '...He couldn't help but to needle the guy--he just liked to get under his skin,'" said a co-worker."The target of Thomas's taunting was John C. Ashcroft," who, of course, currently serves as our nation's Attorney General. Another co-worker interviewed by the authors of "Strange Justice" who also remembered such episodes described Ashcroft as "a tightly wound, straitlaced teetotaler... [he] was easily flustered by Thomas." Ashcroft's discomfort "apparently encouraged Thomas to goad him further," the co-worker noted.Since his narrow margin of confirmation, Thomas has been one of the quietest members of the bench. Except for a somewhat controversial "at home" piece in PEOPLE magazine about Clarence and Virginia Thomas (his second wife has worked for the Heritage Foundation), he rarely speaks publicly. Recent news reports quote Thomas as saying that he does not read the newspapers. His vote contributed to the 5-4 margin that put George W. Bush in the White House.Even if you're currently weary of the floodtide of books detailing up-to-the-minute political events, this chronicle from the recent past remains a disturbing, worthwhile sideline into a historical event that may foreshadow similarly controversial Court nominations in the future. Remember, George H.W. Bush was considered by many Republicans to be "too moderate." Caveat!

Before you read this book, I would reccomend you read David Brock's "Blinded by the Right". Brock wrote "The Real Anita Hill" which was a right wing smear account of Anita Hill when he was in the throes of right wing idealogy and also per his account in "Blinded by the Right", his mouth was firmly attached to the Right Wing teat, "American Spectator" which was funded by right wing fanatic Richard Mellon Scaife. The funny thing about this book is, when you finish reading this book you will probably feel more anger towards the democrats who controlled the reins of power in the legislative branch at that time in the Senate. Senate Majority leader was George Mitchell and the Judiciary Committe Chairman was Joseph Biden. These two lily livered poltroons ably assisted and co-managed the lynching of Anita Hill in many ways. Biden was so much in love with himself at that time (I think he still is) that he did not want to get involved in any controversy by taking a lead role in giving Hill's testimony a fair shake. He sat on her signed and faxed statement to him for many a day, serially informing other Senators one at a time about the allegations, he agreed to let Hill testify first and then reneged, giving the first turn to Thomas and then brought on Thomas again for a second time after Hill's testimony giving Thomas the last word on the issue. George Mitchell's role is also documented as giving aid and comfort to Biden, speechifying on the Senate floor in support of Biden's modus operandi in the hearings, stone walling women's groups who wanted to delay the floor vote on the nomination by claiming disingenously that he had no power in the matter. The capitulation of the democrats is an amazing read especially at this time when polarization has seeped into every pore of the American body politic. Its amazing how craven the democrats were explaining away their lily livered behaviour as "lending a balanced approach" during the hearings. Some day we will see the denoument to this piece of history. Its not over yet. We will see what becomes of Clarence up high on that bench someday.

I was prompted to read "Stange Justice" after reading the press about David Brock's recent confession disavowing his slander of Anita Hill in "The Real Anita Hill". Interestingly, the interim between the Thomas Supreme Court justice hearings and the present make this study more interesting. Since the president who manipulated Clarence Thomas onto the Supreme Court is the current president's father, many of those involved in the lobbying and selling of Clarence Thomas are operatives in the present presidential administration. After reading this account readers will find this particularly discouraging, as clearly they have had no accountability for the many miscarriages of justice which are documented.This chronicle of the Thomas nomination places the Bush and Reagan administratons in an extremely unattractive light. However, as the two authors are senior editors with the "Wall Street Journal" this cannot be dismissed as a one sided liberal diatribe. "Strange Justice" is fair and balanced, and gives appropriate "credit" to the democrats for their timidity in failing to respond to the many opportunities to prevent Thomas's confirmation. There was bittersweet justice in that many of the "moderate" democrats who negotiated with the Bush administration due to imminent relection concerns ultimately ended up being defeated by constituents disgusted by their acquiescence in having allowed Thomas's approval."Strange Justice" does engage in a bit of pop psychology, drawing conclusions regarding how Thomas's childhood and career have molded his political philosophy. In summary, they describe an unhappy childhood resulting in a bitter, warped man with an immense chip on his shoulder. However, the Republicans made his origins fair game by selling Thomas on the basis of his noble, modest origins and "remarkable" success story. The authors are considerably more generous to Anita Hill, whose questionable judgement they attribute to naiviete. However, they also make a convincing case regarding an understandable reticience to respond to sexual harassment, as evidenced by the shameful way she was slandered by machinery of the Bush administration.This is an important and chilling book. Unfortunately, it only leaves you more cynical about the machinations of our government.

This book paints an excellent picture of the politics of the time. A nation watched while Anita Hill tried to justify and make sense of her actions or lack of actions to a panel of Senators who were clearly putting her on trial. These Senators obviously did not have a clue about sexual harrassment. This book is very objective in its presentation and worth reading. I recommend this book regardless of your opinion of the hearing and its outcome.

This book was an excellent pairing with Anita Hill's new book. It paints an excellent background regarding the politics of the time and the underlying reasons for what happened with the hearings. follow it up with "Speaking Truth to Power" by Ms. Hill and you will get the full picture of what actually happened here. an astonishing up close look at Washington politics and priorities.