The Prince and the Pauper

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The subject of this essay is Clarence Thomas, his elevation to the Supreme Court, and the political process that put him there. When President George H. Bush nominated him to sit on the Court, his name produced a great deal of consternation in the liberal community. Thomas was the product of a very controversial public career. He was identified as a person who had been insensitive the civil rights of minorities, women and elderly people when he had been a top administrator at the Department of Education and Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). As well, being a politically conservative black man he did not appear to be suitable as a replacement for the retiring liberal justice Thurgood Marshall. Moreoever, on moral and ethical grounds, Thomas had a dubious professional record that demonstrated a failure to respect the courts and the law. To be sure, there were legitimate questions about his qualifications to be a member of the highest judicial body in the land. Nevertheless, President Bush wanted Thomas on the Supreme Court, and he played hardball partisan politics to achieve that end.