The Courageous Justice Thomas

A letter to the editor The Washington Examiner:

Re: Michael Barone's "The Courage of his Convictions" July 12th.

Reading Michael Barone's fawning profile of Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, I am struck that where one stands on the ideological spectrum determines when a judge is admirably adhering to Constitutional principles. Specifically, Barone looks at the recent Supreme Court's 8-1 decision in the Voting Rights case and hails it as a manifestation of Thomas's "willingness to write lonely opinions and to be guided by history has sometimes helped to change the law." To the contrary, I would argue that the Voting Rights case, as well as the case involving the strip search of a teenage girl where Thomas again was the lone dissent, indicates a judge who is anything but mainstream. Indeed, Thomas is representative of a radical judicial activism from the right.