Sotomayor and Thomas

I think the thing that bothered me the most about liberal groups in the past few decades is the liberal approach to Supreme Court nominees. Honestly, as ridiculous as the attacks on Judge Sotomayor have been lately, they don't seem especially different or even worse than the venom that was aimed at Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. When a right-wing president is in power, they are most likely going to nominate a right-wing candidate to the Supreme Court. If the left had accepted this and acted accordingly over the past two decades they would be on even stronger ground in defending Judge Sotomayor's nomination. Obviously that doesn't mean progressives should just roll over and rubber-stamp the choice, but just tone down the vitriol a little.

The vitriol against Clarence Thomas is back in vogue. In trying to defend Judge Sotomayor some liberals are renewing attacks on Justice Thomas' judicial fitness, his intellect, and his ideology. I'll be honest. I admire Clarence Thomas. I don't agree with him on most points, but he's had to fight his way up from almost unbelievable poverty, a poverty that I pointed out in a previous post, is probably a lot worse than what Judge Sotomayor had to face. He has put up with a ridiculous amount of criticism for his beliefs, his much-criticized silence on the bench, and his relative lack of written opinions of note.

But as much as I disagree with his judicial philosophy, it's still a coherent one, and it has its appeal as a way to approach the Constitution.

Slate had a pretty good critique of the latest round of anti-Thomas attacks. I agree with Dahlia Lathwick's suggestion: defend Judge Sotomayor on her record, and forget about attacking Clarence Thomas' qualifications as a way to do that.