The American Spectator

This is becoming a daily exercise: Yet again, a supposedly mainstream media guy — the “expert” (read: supposedly “neutral”) legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin did a book review for the New Yorker about Clarence Thomas’s pre-Supremes autobiography, and it quickly gets to the nub of things in this nasty passage: Indeed, throughout his judicial career Thomas has, in the name of anti-élitism, shown a distinct solicitude for certain kinds of élites-say, for employers over employees, for government over individuals, for corporations over regulators, and for executioners over the condemned. Thomas’s tender concern for the problems of the powerful reveals itself, in the end, as a form of self-pity.

This is a smear, pure and simple. Not only that, but, as is typical, it misses the whole point of conservative jurisprudence. Toobin focuses on Thomas’ judicial work as if Thomas is a legislator choosing whom to favor, rather than as a judge who acts according to the law (process) rather than considering whom is or is not “helped” by his decisions (results). Frankly, the outright refusal to take conservative jurisprudence seriously enough so as to accurately and fairly represent what we say we are trying to do… is an act that is getting awfully old.

I’ll have more to say on this topic tomorrow, and will also cross-post at Confirm Them tomorrow.