There's no shortage of articles complaining about US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' refusal to participate in oral argument. The Washington Post complained about it in 2004, and McClatchey did a damning quantitative analysis last spring.
But nothing compares to this week's USA Today Assault on Thomas's silence, which is noteworthy not only for its bluntness, but also because the attack was entirely unnecessary to the article, and in fact was literally tacked on to the end. More below the fold...
Page 6A of the Wednesday, November 7, 2007, issue of USA today features a 15-paragraph article about the Age Discrimination in Employment (ADEA) case Federal Express Corp. v. Holowecki, on which the Supreme Court had just heard oral argument.
The case centers on technical matters of administrative law, such as deadlines, notice requirements, exhaustion of remedies, etc. It probably would not have made headlines, except for the unusual consensus among the Justices that the EEOC had misbehaved.
USA Today spent a few paragraphs explaining the background of the case and the statute, then delighted in colorful anti-EEOC quotes from the Justices (which in the print version are juxtaposed with photos of glaring Justices from both the moderate and radical-conservative wings of the court).
Then comes the article's final paragraph:
"Throughout the hour of give-and-take, Justice Clarence Thomas, who was chairman of the EEOC in 1982-90, was his usual silent self. He rocked in his chair, looked up at the ceiling, and did not add to the discussion over EEOC policy." (emphasis added)
And thus ends the article. I appreciate the censure, and I would like to have seen USA Today provide some additional context, too, like Thomas was appointed by George HW Bush, he did not get a well-qualified rating by the ABA, and Senate Democrats fought tooth-and-nail in an epic battle against Republicans to prevent confirmation of such an obviously unqualified jurist.
I get it that this article gives the Propaganda Masters a two-for-one: they get to mis-portray the SCOTUS radicals as sympathetic to an employment discrimination claim, while simultaneously bashing The Government.
But why add on the Thomas slam at the end? Vote here: