Another home run for Gene Lyons

[mooseandsquirrel]

If there's anything I agree with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas about, it's ethnic groupthink.

During his 1991 confirmation hearings, Thomas' resentment of people who treated a black conservative as a sellout was almost palpable. So was his bitterness at those who saw his as an "affirmative-action" appointment.

Due to the circumstances of my birth and upbringing, as they say in 18th century novels, I was exposed early and often to the crippling idea that ethnicity was destiny. As a teen-ager, I felt very daring reminding certain relatives that Ireland was a foreign country they'd never visited. Today, I'm more apt to joke that I only look white; in fact, I'm Irish.

snip

http://moose-and-squirrel.com/gene/gene.html

m&s

[NoQuarter]

1. The Thomas affair was not

an affirmative-action appointment – it was a "cynical-action" appointment.

As a post-Southern Strategy maneuver, the Pubs were wanting to brand Dems as racist in their opposition to the black man. Completely passing over the fact that Clarence was utterly deficient in attributes desired in a Supreme.

[eridani]

2. He was appointed to be a whore for corporations n/t