The conventional wisdom on Justice Clarence Thomas is that he is an unimaginative intellectual featherweight and a clown. The way in which his reputation was traduced in his confirmation hearings and his notorious lack of interest in participating in oral arguments are cited as evidence. A new look at Justice Thomas's influence of the Court by Jeffrey Toobin in the New Yorker sets this condescending notion on its head. From Walter Russell Mead's New Blue Nightmare: Clarence Thomas and the Amendment of Doom If Toobin's revisionist take is correct, (and I defer to his knowledge of the direction of modern constitutional thought) it means that liberal America has spent a generation mocking a Black man as an ignorant fool, even as constitutional scholars stand in growing amazement at the intellectual audacity, philosophical coherence and historical reflection embedded in his judicial work. I recommend both Mead and the much longer Toobin article Partners: Will Clarence and Virginia Thomas succeed in killing Obama's health-care plan? Don't let the New Yorker headline and....
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