Justice Clarence Thomas and his right-wing activist wife Ginni: NAJ Screen shot
By Glynn Wilson –
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Oh so long ago, in a land far, far away, there arose an ideal of a government by the people where a thing called justice could actually exist, blind and fair.
Some people, especially politicians, still try to cling to this fantasy. It’s a myth, but somehow it’s something we must continue striving to achieve, like democracy itself. Maybe one of these days.
It’s pretty impossible to even come close in a nation so divided that lies pass for cross examination in the United States Senate. How can anyone for a minute believe justice is possible when it becomes clear that a member of the nation’s highest authority on justice, the Supreme Court, is complicit in insurrection against democracy itself?
This has been an extraordinary week to see the struggle for this ideal of justice on trial, with President Joe Biden’s nominee for the high court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, marched through a trial of fire — accused of being soft on crime by Senators who continue to coddle the worst criminal to ever occupy the White House.
It was an extraordinary thing to watch a highly accomplished African American woman sit there and take the pummeling from a bunch of Confederate state traitors like Marsha Blackburn, an embarrassment to the state of Tennessee and women everywhere; Tom Cotton of Arkansas who had the gaul to call HER a liar while lying through his teeth on national television; Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who already voted for her twice, what a hypocrite; Roy Blunt of Louisiana, the goofiest Southerner in the Senate from a state that was first to take down a statue of Robert E. Lee; and Ted Cruz of Texas, who still licks Trump’s boots even though Trump called his own father a traitor.
“What a piece of work is a man!”
Indeed, Mr. Shakespeare, “nothing … but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.”
Aside from all the foul and pestilent vapors on cable TV and social media, actual news reporting continues to demonstrate that another Black judge, Clarence Thomas, is what I said he was 31 years ago when writing to former Senator Howell Heflin of Alabama, who they called “The Judge” in the Senate then, who listened honestly and voted against confirmation of Thomas for the high court in 1991. He did so not just because Anita Hill testified that Thomas was a vile abuser of women who famously claimed to find a pubic hair in his Coke, then committed perjury in his testimony before the Senate by lying about it.
Senator Joe Biden also voted against Thomas on the Judiciary Committee, and in the full Senate, which may be the reason Ginni Thomas hates him enough to participate in undermining democracy to try to prevent Biden from being sworn in as president in January, 2021.
With those two votes, the Senate Judiciary Committee deadlocked on Thomas’s nomination by President Herbert Walker Bush in a 7-7 tie, sending his name to the full Senate with no recommendation. He was confirmed by a vote of 52-48, which could very well be the final vote on Judge Jackson in the first or second week of April, but only if she gets the votes of a couple of Republican women.
If the vote is 50-50 and Vice President Kamala Harris has to break the tie, you will know there is no hope for the ideal of justice left anywhere in the Republican Party.
I was going to write these very words myself this Sunday morning, but Maureen Dowd of The New York Times amazingly beat me to it. I fantasize that I give her courage by encouraging her.
“Thomas should never have been on the court. Now that we know his wife was plotting the overthrow of the government, he should get off or be thrown off. You can’t administer justice when your spouse is running around strategizing for a coup.”
So far another former Senator from Alabama who worked for Heflin back in the day, Doug Jones, who was tapped by Biden to serve as Sherpa to shepherd Jackson’s nomination through the Senate, is not commenting on what he saw behind the scenes. He’s indicated to me he might have something to say about it in the future.
Judge Jackson, Doug Jones: Google
He would also not comment on all the news about Clarence and Ginni Thomas, which is the right answer when pressed by a pesky reporter. From previous dealings I know Jones to be a true believer in blind, fair justice, however naive that seems in these trying times.
But at least at the end of the day, his moderate Democrat friend Joe Manchin of West Virginia announced that he would vote for the confirmation of Judge Jackson, which probably cements her nomination as successful — even if it turns out to be a partisan vote.
Knowing how important football is in Alabama, I can’t help but wonder if Alabama football coach Nick Saban might have weighed in with a phone call to his childhood friend Joe Manchin. Wink. Wink.
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