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Musings for Friday - ProPublica and the Pelican Briefing of SCOTUS [1]
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Date: 2023-08-11
Reminder: If, if and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a Merry Christmas.
Thomas was nominated and confirmed in 1991. Thurgood Marshall died 24 January 1993.
From Thomas’ wiki page;
Abortion-rights groups, including the National Abortion Rights Action League and the NOW, were concerned that Thomas would be among those to overrule Roe v. Wade.
Justice William J. Brennan retired 20 July 1990 after having experienced a stroke and advised by doctors that if he were to continue to serve on SCOTUS he would likely experience a more severe stroke. Without Brennan’s retirement it is unlikely that Justice Thurgood Marshall would have retired when he did. With Brennan’s retirement, Marshall felt isolated and alone. Clarence Thomas was initially considered to replace Brennan, but his judicial experience was considered insufficient at the time. What a difference a year on the bench made. Really? Think of Aileen Cannon now, and if you really think she would survive a nomination to SCOTUS.
How much were the retirements and health of Justices Brennan and Marshall on John Grisham’s mind as he wrote The Pelican Brief?
Justice David Souter was a virtual unknown when he was nominated to SCOTUS. What and who he had in his corner was the former governor of his home state of New Hampshire, John Sununu, Chief of Staff to POTUS George H.W. Bush. His lack of an extensive paper trail was considered a positive after the Republicans’ and Reagan’s experience with Robert Bork’s voluminous writings.
Clarence Thomas was also a bit of an unknown to the nation, but not those in the GOP who had been grooming him for years. Nor as it turns out was he unknown to the man he would be replacing.
With Souter and Thomas in place, the GOP and the conservative movement thought they had their men in place to dismantle most of the progressive rulings of the Warren Court and Burger Court (including Roe v Wade).
There were just a few problems with that. The first was David Souter, he turned out not to be the conservative they thought he would be. The second problem was William Jefferson Clinton. Clinton’s victories blocked the GOP’s ability to correct their misjudgment of David Souter. Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg to replace the centrist Byron White. Thus the combination of Souter and Clinton delayed the overturning of Woe v Wade by another 30 years. But NARAL and NOW proved correct in their assessment of Clarence Thomas.
The Republicans and the conservative movement learned their lesson with David Souter, never again would they appointment someone to SCOTUS without them being fully vetted by the Federalist Society and other arch conservative organizations. And as ProPublica is exposing, completely corruptible individuals. From CJ Roberts and Associate Justice Alito under Bush to Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett under TFG. Their corruptibility was demonstrated in their confirmations as they all lied under oath as they all swore their respect for Stare Decisis.
ProPublica’s exposé on Thomas’ corruption appears to be just the most glaring and only the surface of the corruption occurring on SCOTUS. Will the rest of MSM take ProPublica’s lead and follow through on the corruption of the conservative members of SCOTUS or will they try to both sides it with Sotomayor’s books?
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