Star Parker's Nonsense

This is an unpublished letter to the Washington Times in response to a recent column by Star Parker on the poor treatment of Sarah Palin and Clarence Thomas:

Re: “Why liberals hate Clarence thomas and Sarah Palin”, March 26th.

Just as Adrian Peterson, the Minnesota Vikings running back, was severely criticized last week for trivializing slavery, comparing it to the National Football League owners treatment of its players, so too does columnist Star Parker deserve a similar reaction for mindlessly invoking the slavery analogy in describing the liberal mainstream media’s apparently scandalous treatment of former Alaska Governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas. Parker whines that “Thomas and Palin are particularly threatening to liberals because their lives fly in the face of liberal mythology.” “According to this mythology,” Parker continues, “the essential and ongoing struggle of interests between ‘haves’ and ‘have-not,’ rather than an ongoing struggle for human freedom.” This is impenetrable nonsense. Both Palin and Thomas have done extraordinarily well, notwithstanding their legions of liberal detractors: Palin, a remarkably incurious woman, has managed to parlay an abbreviated and undistinguished stint as chief executive of the state of Alaska and an ill-advised stunt of being selected as Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential running mate, into celebrity resulting in the lucrative enterprise known as Brand Palin; and Justice Thomas, despite a legal career of no particular distinction before being nominated by Bush the Elder for the High Court and despite a kinky preoccupation with porn, pubic hairs, and Coke cans, enjoys lifetime employment, where he isn’t required to say anything during oral arguments and where he occasionally cranks out nutty, reactionary opinions that pass for constitutional interpretation. So much for two slaves fleeing the plantation.

Silent Clarence

According to those who keep track of such things, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, with the Supreme Court about to began a new term, looks to continue his 5 year streak of having never uttered a word from the bench during oral argument. Now if only he would adopt a similar reticence in deciding cases and writing opinions.

Ginni's Olive Branch

Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Virginia, left her husband's accuser Anita Hill a voicemail message requesting apology and explanation for allegations of sexual harassment leveled nineteen years ago in Senate confirmation hearings. I get it that a wife would want to protect her husband but what's the point after damn near twenty years? Viewed in the most charitable way, Mrs. Thomas's actions come off as nothing short of bizarre.

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.