Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court Justice appointed by George H. W. Bush, has recently published his memoirs. Whether they are baldly self-serving is not important to me, though I’m happy to read the LA Times review of the tome. And I’m also happy to read Trey Ellis over on Huffington Post about how Thomas has betrayed Affirmative Action, a major reason Thomas achieved the American Dream. Even his defensiveness, 16 years after the fact, concerning his confirmation hearingsa and Anita Hill’s accusations are of no particular interest to me, except that they denote a defensiveness and victimhood that is innapropriate for a Supreme Court Justice. From the LA Times:

Nowhere is this more true than in Thomas’ treatment of the he-said / she-said conflagration over Anita F. Hill’s charges that he made crude sexual advances toward her. Neither his successful Senate confirmation in 1991 nor the passage of time has mellowed his view of what he then famously decried as a “high-tech lynching.” Spewing invective, Thomas depicts Hill as an abrasive, vindictive, politically motivated liar exploited by a “smooth-tongued” liberal “mob” (including a biased press) that was hell-bent on his personal destruction to prevent a more conservative court from overturning Roe vs. Wade. He casts himself as Tom Robinson, the black man wrongly accused of rape in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” his favorite book as a youth. (Hill, a professor at Brandeis University, has declined to comment on the book or Thomas’ characterization of her as a “mediocre” but ambitious lawyer and “my most traitorous adversary.”)

It is refreshing to see that Ms. Hill did not stoop to rehashing once again an ugly event in our political history. And the Clarence Thomas hearings were, no doubt, ugly enough that any rational man or woman would have bowed out before they reached that stage. That Clarence Thomas seeks to rehash them 16 years later, eschewing the kind of poise and honor Ms. Hill displays in her behavior, the kind of poise and honor we should be entitled to in a Supreme Court Justice, is a sign that Thomas is still a stubborn man, long, long after those hearings are over. Is it just stubborn? (Oh, Ms. Hill defends herself from Thomas’ attacks, but that is merely reaction. She does not attack Clarence Thomas, though she does note the many, many sources that put the lie to his words about her.) I would propose that the fact this whiney and defensive book was published at all makes Clarence Thomas unqualified for the office he holds.

I am struck by Trey Ellis’ identification of Thomas’ book and how it tries to claim an historic victimhood for Thomas. Here’s a man who has turned his back on hate crimes and Affirmative Action, but who claims he himself is a victim on the order of some of the most mythic of African American victims in our culture. From HuffPo:

The most odious part of Thomas’s memoir is his continued insistence that his contentious confirmation hearings elevate him to the canon of tragic black heroes like Native Son’s Bigger Thomas and To Kill a Mockingbird’s Tom Robinson. As Jane Meyer and Jill Abramson clearly demonstrate in their book, Strange Justice, Anita Hill was only one of several and Thomas, now one of the twelve highest judges in our nation, lied repeatedly during his confirmation hearings. The bitterness that seems to be eating away at him and spews out of this book might stem from the fact that he was the head of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission while he was sexually harassing Anita Hill and he is now sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America because he lied his ass off in the United States Senate.

We deserve better than Clarence Thomas on our high court, and Thomas certainly should have better judgement than to publish a whiney, self-serving and defensive memoir and hope that someone takes it seriously. History will judge Clarence Thomas. History did judge the man who appointed Thomas, George H. W. Bush, as mediocre, and Thomas’ appointment ranks as Bush’s lowest point and weakest act. Thomas’ memoir has likely sealed his fate as the most undeserving, incurious, political tool ever to be appointed to the Supreme Court. It is sad he got appointed, it is also sad to see him shoot himself in his own foot with this whiney book.

Let me just note that it is my belief Clarence Thomas has the right to make a fool of himself as long as he is not harming others in the successful attempt.