The liberal media have published a flood of stories in recent months criticizing what they consider the ethical problems of conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The stories initially focused on how his wife’s job with a conservative public interest group requires, in the media’s assessment, that the justice recuse himself from certain cases: especially the constitutional challenge to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often referred to as “Obamacare,” that is on track to reach the Court in the next year or two. The most recent crop concerns the gifts he has allegedly received from wealthy conservatives. For example, The New York Times published a lengthy article — four pages in the Web edition — in its June 19 issue accusing Thomas of improperly persuading a wealthy conservative friend to finance the “multimillion-dollar purchase and restoration” of a “pet project” of the justice: a museum about the culture and history of Pin Point, Ga., the dirt-poor town made famous during Thomas’ 1991 Supreme Court confirmation process. The Times followed up that exposé a few days later with an editorial entitled “Cloud Over the Court” that endorsed the article’s findings.
The media would have the American people believe that we are in the midst of Thomas-gate: a series of ethical problems so sinister and serious that they make Thomas unfit to serve on the bench. In reality, however, we are simply witnessing the latest episode of the media’s 20-year crusade against the nation’s highest-ranking African-American jurist. Bluntly put, it is apparently an unforgivable sin in the eyes of the media for Thomas to be both black and conservative. It is difficult to forget, for example, that the Times famously editorialized that Thomas was “the youngest, cruelest justice” only four months into his first term on the Court and that the Times has also opined on several occasions, and without credible supporting evidence, that Thomas is not an impartial judge.
