Shorter Adam Cohen on Clarence Thomas:
NY Times: Liberals are good people. Conservatives are bad people. Clarence Thomas, who is black and grew up under modest circumstances, and once was liberal himself, should be the first one to realize this. Instead, not only is he conservative, but he hangs around with bad people like Rush Limbaugh. This is an enigma, and an especially troubling one now that the Court is moving in Thomas's direction.
Liberalism may be many things, but humane is not one of them.
Some people enjoy what are known as guilty pleasures. It can be Rush Limbaugh, Disco music, Japanese monster movies, or a wide variety of things.
Cheers,
Bill
I'm glad I'm not Adam Cohen's dry cleaner.
"Prior to entering journalism, he was an education-reform lawyer, and a lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala."
I think this explains a lot.
I heard Justice Thomas speaks civilly to children - even when they speak up unasked!
You know, part of me thinks that I'd actually rather that the Onion created Cohen. He'd be funnier.
Maybe you still have a lot to learn, from both of them. It takes a long time to be washed of the poisons they teach in univiersities these days. Keep watching and you'll eventually get it all. Hopefully.
Justice Thomas does not speak very much at oral argument but he does on rare occassions
I was in attendance on one such occassion when Justice Thomas asked both a question and a follow-up during the oral argument in Rice v. Collins (page 46).
But, of course, implying that Justice Thomas never says anything at all feeds both the cliche that he is a rigid ideologue too stupid to put two sentences together. Of course, that is a cliche about other conservative politicians too, so I guess it is just a conveninent liberal template.
Dang! I thought that was "Onion." You mean this piece is for real?
<i>Clarence Uncle Thomas and Rush Bimbo have each spent a career toadying to powerful Republicans....</i>
</blockquote>
On the other hand, 'powerful' Republicans spend <i>their</i> careers toadying to powerful Democrats, so what's your gripe?
On the other hand, 'powerful' Republicans spend their careers toadying to powerful Democrats, so what's your gripe?
I will scour the Times archives for pieces citing this phenomenon as evidence of their stupidity and disengagement.
That was funny and an accurate description of liberals and conservatives both at the same time.
Although to be fair I would substitute delusional for stupid because their are many very smart liberals who are either liars seeking power or who were liars but became delusional when they started believing their own lies.
So I would improve you saying with "liberals are delusional" and "conservatives are not delusional".
Says the "Dog"
Have you read anything recently more ugly than the first paragraph of this piece? Perhaps Clarence Thomas doesn't speak up during oral arguments because he doesn't enjoy seeing his words twisted by the condescending racists at the NY Times?
Caricature? What would you call this statement by Cohen: "[Thomas] appears poised in the next few weeks to achieve his longstanding goal: dismantling the integrationist vision of his predecessor Thurgood Marshall."? Moreover, what would you call Cohen's representation* of Thomas's dissents?
Presenting a caricature of a caricature does seem inherently wrong to me.
Presenting a caricature of a caricature does not seem inherently wrong to me.
Says the "Dog"
I am an intellectual whose best friend since high school is a non-intellectual who has never read a book for pleasure in his life. The qualities I look for in a friend - integrity,loyalty,principle - are qualities that I find sadly lacking in many intellectual circles. I am sure that the friendship between Thomas and Limbaugh is different than what I am describing - friendship carries many connotations, ranging from Aristotelian friendship to "a pal that you hang around with for a good time" - My only point is that at either end of the continuum, one ought not to regard this as stunning. Numerous writers have pointed out that many of the worst pathologies of modern intellecuals can be traced to their insular seclusion from the rest of society (Hence the pejorative term "ivory tower"). This point has been raised in a number of different contexts, by thinkers as diverse as Charles Murray and Camille Paglia. The world would probably be a better place if many intellectuals did not lead social lives that were functionally similar to a religious cult, where people married and made friends with people who already shared their biases and frequently warped view of reality.
So once again we see who the real racists are in America.
You mean the ones who cry "racism!" whenever it's suggested that an individual who happens to be a member of a racial minority might actually be as ill-qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice as he appears to be?
The world would probably be a better place if many intellectuals did not lead social lives that were functionally similar to a religious cult, where people married and made friends with people who already shared their biases and frequently warped view of reality.
Yes, this is a little far afield of the original topic but we are not talking about Clarence Thomas befriending his neighborhood auto mechanic or, say, a gay, vegan artist living in the West Village. Limbaugh is not as smart as Clarence Thomas but he is still a prominent and wealthy member of society who happens to be conservative as well. I can't think of any place that more closely resembles your comment about people "lead[ing] social lives that were functionally similar to a religious cult" than the Washington, D.C. metro area.
...where, notably, Rush Limbaugh does not live and has never lived. I don't see what your point is.
No one that has read a sampling Thomas' opinions or dissents can seriously think that he is not qualified to be on the Supreme Court. Now that is a pretty big club, I would say there is probably at least a thousand people in the country that are qualified to be on the court. But Thomas has proved himself as one of them.
Just because the show is shallow doesn't mean that Limbaugh is IRL.
I've never been particularly impressed by the quality of Thomas's writing, nor fully persuaded that he's at the intellectual level one would expect of a Supreme Court Justice. Maybe I'm just biased by my political leanings, but on the other hand, I'm frequently blown away by Justice Scalia's intelligence and writing style despite disagreeing with much of what he says. Reasonable minds could certainly differ on the issue of Thomas's qualifications, but the point of my comment above was to challenge the ludicrous notion that any criticism of Thomas's intellect thereby exposes the critic as "racist."
Did anyone notice the article by Larry Flynt (publisher of Hustler magazine) a few days ago upon the occasion of Jerry Falwell's death? You may recall Falwell sued Flynt for libel and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court on the issue of whether parodies were protected speech. According to the article, after that case was over they both went on Larry King to talk about it, kept talking afterwards and eventually became friends, even though they agreed on hardly anything.
It's an unfortunate aspect of the level of political discourse in this country that some people think that one cannot be friends except with a person who shares one's political views or, to use the current term, a person who "shares my values."
Heavens no, it is only racist to suggest a member of a racial minority is ill-qualified to be President of the United States.
He's successful because he mocks himself. His larger-than-life on-air persona is self-deprecating.
It functions in the show because it's the single thing that the left cannot do.
He's often top-notch in taking apart the left ; his show only fails in those periods that he goes into social moralism, and that's because he loses the self-mockery at those points. Such periods can go on for weeks, which is not good. But most of the time the show is entertaining.
Thomas is attracted to Limbaugh because of that ability to parody himself while making a point.
I should add that Limbaugh is on the right side in economics but doesn't understand how economics works, and so doesn't articulate economics very well.
Truth Seeker - If you're looking for truth on Limbaugh's show, well, nevermind...
JGR - Don't disagree. I guess I am assuming more than I actually know about their friendship.
Touche-- but I'll happily stipulate that both accusations of racism are equally meritless distractions from a discussion about the genuine validity of the expressed concerns.
Justice Thomas is the finest Justice on the Court. That is because he is a Justice, and not a Super-Legislator. And, I wish the other justices, especially Breyer, would emulate him and stay quiet. (Someone tell Breyer it is pronounced "amicus," not "a-mike-us" brief).
Between this joke of an article and Dowd's hit piece a few years ago, I am surprised the NY Times hasn't resorted to calling him an "uppity negro" yet.
Oh yes, and when Bush appointed him, he was the best qualified person in America for the job.
Maybe you could do that the next time you argue before the Court.
The difficulty with this passage is that a 180-day period to file claims is built right into the statute. Yet these statements not only flatly ignore that, they tend to give the reader an impression that the idea that complaining too late is a problem comes from Thomas' psyche, not the statute's plain text.
Guest101, what a comeback. I am vanquished. I should have realized that every black conservative is by definition stupid. Otherwise they would be liberals. By the way just how many of those minorities have their been?
I've never been particularly impressed by the quality of Thomas's writing, nor fully persuaded that he's at the intellectual level one would expect of a Supreme Court Justice. Maybe I'm just biased by my political leanings, but on the other hand, I'm frequently blown away by Justice Scalia's intelligence and writing style despite disagreeing with much of what he says. Reasonable minds could certainly differ on the issue of Thomas's qualifications, but the point of my comment above was to challenge the ludicrous notion that any criticism of Thomas's intellect thereby exposes the critic as "racist."
Well I guess you and Harry Reed think alike. If Adam Cohen had said that he disagreed with Justice Thomas's opinions nobody would have raised an eyebrow. However denigrating the intelligence of a minority who is conservative seems to be par for the course for all of those liberals who claim to be against racism.
While I don't want to make this thread a rehashing of Ledbetter, Ginsburg and the other three dissenters didn't deny that Title VII (in this and most cases) had a 180 day SoL. The question was whether a woman who had been paid less than a man because of her sex for a long time could claim that each paycheck constituted a fresh act of discrimination. Reasonable minds may differ as to the correct answer on that question, but the "plain text" of the statute doesn't answer it.
I hate reading pieces on the law from non-trade sources because they condense years of complex litigation, numerous threads of legal issues and statutes and a lengthy, professionally reasoned legal opinion into a one sentence soundbite that, at best, gives the layman reader no context of the case whatsoever, and worse, is frequently outright misleading.
This piece is particularly offensive. Why not just say he enjoys killing dogs on the grounds he had to put the family pet asleep?
I've been waiting for somebody else to jump on this, but I guess nobody's going to: I would hope that the members of the USSC are reasonably bright, but "the apex of the nation's intellectual world?" C'mon!
"Oh yes, and when Bush appointed him, he was the best qualified person in America for the job."
Was Ginsburg the best-qualified person in America for the job when she was appointed? Let's face it; she, like Thomas was appointed as much for political reasons as any other. The US Supreme Court now operates as a kind of American Politburo. This is exactly why Adam Cohen is so upset with Thomas. Cohen clearly regards SCOTUS as a policy making body when he uses terms like "harsh jurisprudence." He wants Thomas to champion issues as Marshall did. He never stops to think that perhaps there was a problem with Marshall's jurisprudence.
Are you suggesting that Cohen should refrain from denigrating the intelligence of someone whom he (rightly or not) believes to be unqualified for his lofty government position simply because that person is black? I would think it clear from my prior posts, but to reiterate-- that view would seem to be more racist than Cohen's, to the extent you're arguing that minorities should be held to a more forgiving standard than non-minorities. The question whether any government official is intelligent enough to adequately discharge the duties of his or her office is, I would submit, a perfectly legitimate inquiry. Whether you agree or disagree with Cohen's suggestion that Thomas isn't smart enough to be a Supreme Court Justice, there's nothing inappropriate in asking the question.
I agree, though I noticed at least one poster HERE has referred to Clarence Thomas as "Uncle Thomas"--which clearly was a racist (and not particualrly witty) insult.
Ya think?
Cohen really worries more about Thomas' jurisprudence than his intellect. If only Thomas would vote the way Cohen wants him to vote, he wouldn't have a problem with his Harpo imitations. His intellect would surely be up to the job. His real sin is not being another Marshall who "… persuaded the court to champion racial integration." But as a lawyer Cohen should know that SCOTUS is supposed to hear cases, and not champion causes. Either Cohen was asleep during his constitutional law classes, or he is so blinded by his ideological agenda, (right out the Frankfurt School*) he can't see straight.
*For a discussion of the Frankfurt School and it's relation to "Critical Theory" see Kolakowski , Main Currents of Marxism: The Breakdown, Chapter 10.
RN, I'm not sure I'd want to go so far as to say it "seems to be par for the course," but that mindset is certainly out there in some camps.
Same camps that would likely be beside themselves if they knew that Thomas attends NASCAR races, and in an RV at that!
Oh yes, and when Bush appointed him, he was the best qualified person in America for the job.
Whenever I get into a discussion concerning affirmative action I am told the successful candidate was "qualified". President Clinton used that exact word many times defending appointments. By definition a student who gets a 75 passing grade is "qualified". Justice Marshall was qualified. Justice Ginsburg was qualified. Justice Thomas was qualified. Were they the most qualified? That is immaterial. They filled a slot and were not white males.
One can apply Title VII differently to the particular facts of the Ledbetter case, yes, but the statute certainly contains a 180 degree statute of limitations in most circumstances, and five justices felt the best interpretation was that it barred this suit also. And the dissenters were, to a significant extent, making policy arguments why it shouldn't be interpreted that way (rather than, say, claiming that it's impossible to interpret the words that way). And yet Cohen simply handwaves away the majority decision as "Clarence Thomas made a dubious ruling."
I also happen to disagree strongly with some elements of his jurisprudence and, for that disagreement, I have sustained the ugliest of ugly name calling from the sophomoric "liberal racist" cliche peddlers. You people who add nothing to the conversation by reflexively invoking this nonsense should be punished by being forced to watch an interminable reel of footage by Michael Moore, who is actually your closest intellectual relative.
Liberals in America are ironically the intolerant ones.
The end.
#1 you obviously wouldn't be allowed near Ann Coulter's coffee table
#2 there are pills for your condition, or at least electric shock treatments
How does the old saying go, if you're not a leftist at 20 you don't have a heart, if you are still a leftist at 60 you don't have a brain?
Incidentally, I amused that anyone still thinks Rush Limbaugh is a conservative.
There are probably two or three dozen people qualified to fill a Supreme Court vacancy and it's pointless to argue which of them is the "best" qualified - to some extent it's a subjective assessment.
In fact, I think John Roberts (especially after his nomination hearing) is the first nomination I can recall where nearly everyone had a hard time thinking of anyone who could possibly be better qualified.
#2 there are pills for your condition, or at least electric shock treatments
How does the old saying go, if you're not a leftist at 20 you don't have a heart, if you are still a leftist at 60 you don't have a brain?
there is quite a famous quote from steve earle, where he says that townes van zandt is the best songwriter in the world, and that he'll scream that from bob dylan's coffee table. i was riffing on that quote, not expressing some impulse that needs to be medicated. by the way, the "they have medication for that" joke is hackneyed and not clever. you might want to consider ditching it.
You forgot watching pornography and sexually harrassing your female assistants.
(Since the original post is just purile over-the-top strawman hyperbole, I feel no compunction to treat any of this seriously. If Prof Bernstein instigates a food-fight, he's going to get a food-fight.)
substitute 'sarcastic' for 'silly' and you might be onto something. you can't possibly imagine that anyone would "seriously engage" Cohen's tripe. The citation I would imagine was not to enlighten us as to a credible argument regarding Thomas's jurisprudence, IQ, or the Ledbetter decision. Rather it was a blog post appropriately, if snidely, criticizing the Times choice of commentary.
There are writers who would disagree with Thomas's jurisprudence but do so without unattributed quips like: "he is afraid that if he speaks he will reveal his ignorance about the case". What a brave bit of writing, to try to duck the notion that he thinks that himself and yet to say it. That is the kind of stuff one might expect to see if not celebrate in a heated thread (and I agree with those who implicitly bemoan the hackery that attends both sides of the barricades in this argument). But obviously, the real point is that the NY Times is no better than your average blog. (which is not to say blogs are bad, but there is no more or less legitimacy).
I can't blame Cohen for this although you might think he would resort to a higher level of discourse if seeking the purpoted top of the journalistic heap as an outlet. Maybe he thought it was going to run in the Onion and sent it to the Times by accident.
Blame here belongs to the editorial page editors of the Times for crediting Cohen's synthesis of events as a legitimate and useful prism through which to debate the court's direction. I think David was correct to demur and it was quite reasonable for him to do so offhandedly.
It was an opinion piece, but it reads like a mini-biopic. While it is clear that there is opinion being expressed it also employs a biographical technique as counterpoint to explicit opinion. The piece appears to make factual assertions on which the opinions are based, thus implanting the biased context even if one remains open on the question of interpretation. The treatment of Ledbetter is a good example but take also this ditty:
So the idea is to side up for or against equal opportunity as a government prerogative. The notion that his tenure at the EEOC was apathetic is the background that tends to slide by unchallenged as the reader tries rather to see whether they share the value of "civil rights activists" or "conservative". This is a clever technique but the Times editors should know better. Or maybe the point is that they do know better.
Brian
Um, legislative intent? Text? Is Cohen just trying to prove to everyone that he's an idiot?
"In the last 100 Supreme Court arguments, Clarence Thomas has not uttered a word. Court watchers have suggested a variety of explanations. Among the least flattering: he is afraid that if he speaks he will reveal his ignorance about the case; he is so ideologically driven that he invariably comes with his mind made up; or he has contempt for the process."
In this New York Times opinion piece, Adam Cohen has written an ill-informed, idiotically simplistic slime job against a Supreme Court justice. Readers of the New York times have suggested a variety of explanations. Among the least flattering: that he wasn't hugged enough as a child, that he scored a 122 on his fifth crack at LSAT and viscerally detests lawyers, and that the DNC possesses compromising pictures of him committing double-homicide at a strip club during his birthday party, which was jointly hosted by the KKK and NAMBLA.
I'll warn you now to avoid the, "gosh, we can't tell the difference between Al Gore and the Unabomber!" thread.
Adam Cohen isn't racist; he just happens to think like a racist. That's all. Blacks are all the same. They aren't individuals. They're all interchangable. You've seen one, you've seen them all. Isn't that the thinking behind his constant harping on Marshall? The thinking behind all racism is that you know everything you need to know about someone when you know their race.
Or why is it that Cohen never mentions that Justice Marshall wrote hardly a word of his opinions? I don't know about his early years on the Court, but by the early 1980s, Marshall's clerks were writing everything and Justice Marshall rarely even changed a comma. Does that mean that Justice Marshall was a dope? I guess it does it you want to apply the standards that Cohen uses to evalute Justice Thomas (who apparently writes far more of his own opinions than Marshall ever did).
All of Cohen's complaints boil down to exactly what Prof. Bernstein said: "Conservative bad, liberal good." And for this Cohen is paid a salary by the NYT?
I, too, must confess my surprise that Clarence Thomas would be friends with a flat-out racist like Rush Limbaugh. (Oh, wait, I forgot, liberals are the real racists, not people who tell black callers to "take that bone out of your nose.") But it's pretty hard to be a movement conservative if you have a rule against associating with racists. I feel bad for Justice Thomas; he's a very smart man whose views are obviously sincerely held, and he can't be thrilled with the company those views have forced him to keep over the years.
...supported not by any substantive argumentation but instead innuendo, subtle racist insults, a disturbing misunderstanding or disregard of all relevant judicial theory, and a positively Bush-esque black-and-white moral judgment of people who are not by profession moral philosophers or moral agents of our society.
That would be a slightly-longer Bernstein, but a more accurate one.
That is rather the point. Your "slightly-longer Bernstein" is apparently offering a concise but meaningful critique of the flaws in the Cohen piece. Unfortunately, the actual Bernstein did not do what your hypothetical Bernstein did.
So, if your claim is that your "slightly-longer Bernstein" would have been accurately critiquing the Cohen piece, I agree. But if your claim is that your "slightly-longer Bernstein" was an accurate summary of what the real Bernstein did, I disagree.
In fact, LGVV's "slightly-longer Bernstein" said exactly the same thing that DB did, except much more wordy than necessary.
Frankly, I am in no mood to dignify the Cohen-Bernstein any further by explaining why I think you are wrong (in that I believe LGVV's "slightly-longer Bernstein" gave an accurate and effective critique of Cohen, and the real Bernstein did not). I'll just note again, as I noted above, that at some point one has to suspect that rather than a parody of people like Cohen, Bernstein is in fact just giving us the real Bernstein.
Liberals are SO much nicer.
A 3BR Tudor in Northern Virginia would sell at around 300,000.
Jealous much? If you don't like it, get your own blog.
That's a term that someone somewhere must find offensive and derogatory. But it's been 2-1/2 hours and no one complained!
That's a term that someone somewhere must find offensive and derogatory. But it's been 2-1/2 hours and no one complained!"
Well, I for one found it offensive and derogatory, since I'm gay, but I didn't want to get into this cat fight.
I don't get it. I guess some people--Ty, ATRGreek--are bringing in objections to other things Bernstein has said, but this post seems rather clear:
1) Bernstein made fun of Adam Cohen's piece.
2) Adam Cohen's piece is really, really bad by any relevant measure.
3) Points #1 and #2 are not a coincidence. Bernstein probably knows why Cohen's piece is really, really bad and assumes we'll pick up on those reasons.
I understand #3 does not logically follow in the strict sense, but many realistic judgments do not. You may certainly be justified in disagreeing with Bernstein on other matters, but here his humor seems entirely called for.
Do you honestly think they'd pay him a salary for "Conservative good, liberal bad?"