Jeffrey Rosen Versus Clarence Thomas

What Alan Jacobs said. I am by no means in the "Clarence Thomas, Real American Hero" camp, and much of Rosen's analysis seems to me astute. But I am persistently puzzled by the unwillingness of white male journalists, in particular - for whom a meritocracy-plus-affirmation action system of advancement provides constant validation, and constant confirmation that they're getting ahead on innate talent and hard work alone - to generate sympathy for a figure like Thomas, who feels, for not-incomprehensible reasons, that his successes have been won (as Jacobs puts it, quoting, Stanley Fish) "in such a way as to render them bitter to the taste." You don't have to like him or agree with him to understand, better than Rosen seems to, where his anger might be coming from.

I would also add, to Rosen's remark that "it is no more possible to feel pity for [Thomas] than for Britney Spears," that the comparison is ridiculous (persecution by the paparazzi is by no means comparable to the combination of segregationist racism, affirmative-action condescension and Uncle-Tom vitriol that has made Thomas the angry man he is today) and that even if it weren't I do feel pity for Britney Spears, and I'm a little puzzled by anyone who doesn't.

Comments

Leave Clarence Thomas alone!

I think you're mis-reading Rosen, Ross. He clearly does feel pity for Thomas, or at least he would feel pity if Thomas' response to the various real humiliations he suffered was not so out of whack. While I agree with you that Britney Spears is worthy of pity for various reasons, Rosen's remark and his comparison between Spears and Thomas is a claim that Spears and Thomas are their own worst enemies by seeking publicity rather than trying to protect their privacy and their dignity. You can certrainly disagree with this, but it's a fairly narrow point.

I think what angers liberals most about Thomas is not "Uncle Tom-ism" but his hypocrisy. He can feel angry and victimized by racism because he's a conservative (even though he has been talented and fortunate enough to reach the pinnacle of his profession), but other black people that have been equally if not more disadvantaged need to shut up and deal with it. Do a thought experiment and imagine how conservatives in general, and Thomas in particular, would treat a black man that was as viscerally angry about the effect of racism on his life as Thomas but who happened to have liberal views. It's not hard to imagine.

Posted by Led | December 12, 2007 9:21 AM

Think of how much trouble could have been avoided If only Clarence Thomas had married Anita Hill instead of that white woman he did eventually marry.

Posted by Steve Sailer | December 12, 2007 1:34 PM

I thought that Rosen was 99% on the mark. Is it too rude to point out that Thomas lied under oath when he insisted that he didn't talk dirty to Anita Hill? Why feel sorry for a man who admits he "probably" lied about not using drugs, but it wasn't his fault because he was too drunk to remember using them? Above all, why feel sorry for Thomas when he does it for himself, 24/7?

Posted by Alan Vanneman | December 12, 2007 1:37 PM

Clarence's bitterness and hypocrisy are pretty staggering, but the worst thing about him is that he is spectacularly bad at his job. And it's a fairly important one.

Posted by Woody Bombay | December 12, 2007 1:43 PM

How many people here actually read Justice Thomas's book.

Its clear from Rosens article and many of the comments here that the left considers him to be (basically) a Race Traitor for not towing the (supposed) party line.

Any discussion of Anita Hills charges have become obscene after the Clinton scandal. It is clear that the forces on the Left brought an 11th hour improvable to bear – That (even if fully true) doesn’t come close to calling his fitness into question.

Ross compounds the problem by agreeing with the characterization of Thomas as angry. Any familiarity with the man and his work reveals a man of immense character who (naturally) resents the injustice inherent in his attempted “Borking” and rightfully dislikes the prestige journalist milieu that is so befuddled by his very existence. This is hardly tantamount to his continued characterization as an angry man with a vendetta.

What other Supreme Court Justice gets continuously psychoanalyzed in the media. It is spurious speculation driven by the need to demonize a man who represents the kind of character study the left cannot fathom.

The truth is Clarence Thomas, IS A – “Real American Hero"

Posted by Fitz | December 12, 2007 2:05 PM

Is it too rude to point out that Thomas lied under oath when he insisted that he didn't talk dirty to Anita Hill?

Is it rude to ask you what evidence you have of that contention?

Posted by Art Deco | December 12, 2007 5:23 PM

What other Supreme Court Justice gets continuously psychoanalyzed in the media.

Precisely. Thomas causes too much cognitive dissonance amongst the left. Rosen is simply playing the same old game - don't argue with his legal reasoning, cast aspersions on the man's psychological profile. He even resorts to repeating a little hearsay item from Merida and Fletcher's book. From Ed Whelan's review of their book:

The authors’ rehashing of Anita Hill’s allegations at Thomas’s confirmation hearings is especially one-sided. Although they state in their prologue that “no definitive truth about what happened between them has emerged since the hearings,” the reader will have no doubt where Merida and Fletcher stand. In piling speculation upon speculation, they even recount an anecdote involving a family dinner three years after the hearing in which — according to a journalist guest who had met Thomas on a few occasions — Thomas mentioned one of Hill’s allegations and then laughed in a manner the guest thought lacked the requisite “righteous indignation”: “It was almost as if he were laughing because he got away with something,” the guest comments. Merida and Fletcher distance themselves from the guest’s extravagant inference at the same time that they somehow see fit to include it.

Posted by Mike S. | December 12, 2007 5:23 PM

Led,

I think what angers liberals most about Thomas is not "Uncle Tom-ism" but his hypocrisy. He can feel angry and victimized by racism because he's a conservative (even though he has been talented and fortunate enough to reach the pinnacle of his profession), but other black people that have been equally if not more disadvantaged need to shut up and deal with it. Do a thought experiment and imagine how conservatives in general, and Thomas in particular, would treat a black man that was as viscerally angry about the effect of racism on his life as Thomas but who happened to have liberal views. It's not hard to imagine.

The difference is that Thomas hasn't asked anyone to give him special dispensation because of his victimization, whereas liberal policies are built around this practice. Thomas might need to let go some of his anger, but at least he's not asking innocent third parties to rectify the wrongs he's suffered.

Posted by Mike S. | December 12, 2007 5:31 PM

I have nothing against Thomas personally -- I tend to agree with those who believe he was treated unfairly because he didn't fit folks' expectations and that "a high-tech lynching" is not an inaccurate assessment.

There are plenty of things I admire about Thomas, but his skill as a jurist and legal writer is not one of them. He's written some persuasive dissenting opinions, but his body of work is not very impressive.

Thomas' worldview is a little confused, I think. Folks try to lump him in with religious conservatives, but I actually suspect he is a Randian deist or atheist/agnostic. I've heard him discuss her influence on his thinking, and his opinions sometimes give off the distinct true believer vibe. Of course, Randism would certain explain his extreme hostility to racial preferences (to which I am quite sympathetic, but for different reasons).

Posted by hugo | December 12, 2007 6:29 PM

Really interesting stuff, the article, the post and the comments. My $.02:

1) I get the Britney Spears comparison in that both she and Justice Thomas have achieved what they always wanted and now complain about the negative effects of that success. Really, was a really conservative Supreme Court nominee - to replace Justice Marshall no less - subject to a lot of scrutiny? And you still made it onto the Court you say, one of only 110 justices in history? I also happen to feel sympathy for Britney Spears and people like her, but it is easy to see why people reply "cry me a river".

2) For the critiques of Justice Thomas, there is paranoia on the left, but it is also very easy to see why he is so criticized. He feels pronounced victimization at not being hired by a white glove New York firm coming out of Yale, an indignity that he is convinced resulted from his race. This is a fine position, but his conclusion is that nobody else should be allowed to follow in his footsteps because the path he followed was just so tainted. What? To remark that the journey was hard and to feel bitter is fine, but to reason from there that the ladder should be pulled up behind you - in this case, that affirmative action and other such preferences for minorities should be abolished - is a bit asinine.

To adopt his position, he would have to believe either that he would have been admitted anyway - in which case he suffered unnecessarily - or that he would have been better off not being admitted. On the first point, well, if he chooses to believe that he would have achieved everything anyway and that people's suspicions that he benefited from affirmative action are only a "taint" and have no business in fact, he can. However, that is a bit like Britney Spears protesting photographers because she believing that she would have gotten as far as she did without her looks - she can believe it, but I'm not going to feel sympathy for her if she does.

On the second interpretation - does he really think, just because he could not land a New York biglaw job, that he would have been better off not attending Yale? There were plenty of other African-Americans who graduated from other fine law schools not called "Yale", and none of them are on the Supreme Court today. Justice Thomas did not get a job at a white glove New York firm, but he did land a job - Assistant AG - for which he was recruited by the Attorney General of Missouri, future Senator and Yale alumnus John Danforth. This man would later bring him to D.C. and guide him through his confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court, a position to which he was appointed by another Yale alumnus, George H.W. Bush. So, he landed a job with his political mentor solely because he went to Yale - other African Americans of his generation who graduated from lesser law schools did not land such jobs, and they certainly were not recruited for them - and yet he now says that going there was a "mistake", that he considers his degree worthless because it was so tainted with affirmative action, and that it is better for other African Americans if they just do not have to suffer the indignity he did... It is not hard to see why people roll their eyes at the lessons he draws from his own story - to profit from a system that works exactly as designed to ensure that men such as himself get noticed by people like Senator Danforth, and then to advocate that the system caused him great indignity and should be abolished...well, again, he can say whatever he wants, but I'm not exactly overflowing with sympathy.

The final nail in the coffin - what of this indignity that he suffered in not being hired by a white glove New York firm? Well, he was not at the top of his class, and he was from an extremely poor, rural background in Georgia. This makes his story all the more amazing, but might other conservatives not correct a man who automatically cries victim when there are other obvious cultural barriers to his advancement? Justice Thomas wore overalls to class, and to this day he enjoys vacationing in his RV. I find these traits charming and they surely endure him to salt of the earth political types. They are not, though, traits one found in the extremely high brow, status conscious world of New York law in the early 1970's.

So, to wrap it all up, we have a man who profited enormously from attending the most prestigious law school in the country, which allowed him to land a job and plug into a social network to which he otherwise would have had no conceivable access and yet which served him throughout his career - including landing him in the job at the pinnacle of his profession - decrying that very degree on grounds that show a pronounced victimization of the very kind which he and his backers decry in those to whom they deny opportunities today. I do not mind the guy - and as I said, I feel more sympathy for people than most - but I understand why others may be saving their tissues for Britney.

Posted by Vermando | December 13, 2007 2:08 AM

I really don't get the whole "Clarence Thomas as angry" shtick. I mean, why isn't Sandra Day O'Connor the "angry old woman" since she keeps whining on and on about how the "independence of judiciary" is in danger (from those mean ol' columnists who dare to criticize our secular priests - in robes no less!) Or why isn't Souter the "reclusive" New Englander? And so on...

So Thomas thinks he was done wrong in various ways and that the wrongs were on account of a combination of his race and his politics. Does anyone around here *not* believe that the (mostly liberal) legal and media establishment gives an especially hard time to conservative blacks? And that if *you* were faced with that week in and week out you might come to find that just a bit distasteful?

I have a number of acquaintances who though they disagree quite strongly with Thomas's jurisprudence nonetheless find him a warm and decent person. I think I'll trust their judgment over a DC journalist/lawyer with an ax to grind any day.

Posted by Michael Simpson | December 13, 2007 10:15 AM

When conservatives rush to the defence of Clarence Thomas, it only goes to show that only actual principle most Americans on the right believe in is "if the left's against it, then I'll support it!". How can any intelligent person argue with a straight face that this man was qualified to sit on the Supreme Court? Clarence Thomas is a walking billboard for the problems with affirmative action, and the more conservatives defend him, the more they appear, frankly, rather insane.

Posted by vanya | December 14, 2007 8:26 AM

I certainly do pity Thomas, even as I despise him. In fact, I wrote a blog post about Thomas in October entitled, I Pity the Fool. http://thepoliticalromantic.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/10/i-pity-the-fool.html

I mean, I'm very sorry for Thomas that his grandfather was an irredeemable ass. But I'm very confused why Thomas revers the man who kicked him out of his home for quitting the seminary after he heard a racist remark the day Martin Luther King was shot.

Posted by Robert Geilfuss | December 16, 2007 6:57 AM

Thomas is a cranky old porn-loving turd of a man who has sucked up to wingnuts in order to advance his career and is surprised (or pretends to be surprised) that non-sucking non-cranky non-turds don't admire him for doing so.

Let's be serious, his place on the Supreme Court could be taken by a cactus and no one would notice the difference if David Duke got his proxy vote.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | December 18, 2007 1:54 AM