Claris Law Legal Blogging Community

Name:

E-mail:

Phone Number:

Zip Code:

Your Question:

Editor: Rod Sullivan
Profession: Maritime Attorney

Category: Supreme Court Rulings

Frank Rich's supporters express pride that he gets his facts straight. Well, his fact checking record took a hit with his recent hit piece on the autobiography of Clarence Thomas. Here are the Top 10:

10. "He [Justice Thomas]" still denies that he is the beneficiary of the very race-based preferences he deplores."

No. Not correct. Thomas repeatedly states that his acceptance by both Harvard and Yale was affected by his race, and that he wishes he had not indicated race on his application, and been judged solely solely by the quality of his work as an English Literature major at Holy Cross---where he did well, by the way.

9. "...the post [he received when he was hired by then Missouri Attorney General John Danforth] was substantial -- an assistant attorney general --"

No. Not correct. The position of assistant attorney general is an entry level position for a young attorney. An assistant attorney general has less real authority than the secretaries who work in the attorney general's office, and only slightly more prestige. Rich is easily fooled by titles.

8. The "compassionate conservative" [President Bush] who turned the 2000 G.O.P. convention into a minstrel show..."

No. Not correct. First you need to know that a minstrel shows "portrayed and lampooned blacks in stereotypical and often disparaging ways: as ignorant, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, joyous, and musical." The 2000 G.O.P. convention did none of those things. In fact, Bush went out of his way to court the black vote (and then didn't get it) by giving prominent roles to blacks who had succeeded in business or politics.

When you know that, you realize just how racist Frank Rich really is, in his smarmy liberal way. Only liberals can make that sort of comment about "minstrel shows" and get away with it. Hodding Carter, an aide to Jimmy Carter, once said in Playboy magazine that Justice Thomas was "a 'chicken-eating preacher' who gladly parroted the segregationists' lines in exchange for a few crumbs from the white man's table" and that he was "one of the few left in captivity" as if he were some sort of an animal, confined to a zoo.

Liberals feel free to say those sort of things, and make those sort of references, without fear of being chastised for it. They, and Rich, should be ashamed (but they're not).

7. Thomas' book "follows a Supreme Court decision (which he abetted) outlawing voluntary school desegregation plans in two American cities..."

No. Not correct. Rich is referring to Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 which found that schools which had never been segregated could not prevent students from transferring from one school to another simply because of their race.

Rich is a sort of lazy liberal. I doubt he has read the Supreme Court's opinion, instead permitting liberal colleagues to tell him what it says, and what it means. What the Supreme Court opinion found is that Seattle had never operated legally segregated schools or been subject to court-ordered desegregation. In short, the schools had never been segregated, so it couldn't be "desegregated."

What Rich and his liberal colleagues mean by "desegregation plans" are plans meant to classify and sort students based upon race, regardless of whether there is a history of racial segregation in the first place. He loves the sort of "top-down" social experimentation that treats people like members of an interest group--you are black, you must think like a black person thinks, and we will place you in a school where you will meet whites who think like white people think. God save us from people like Rich.

6. Thomas' book "follows the decision by the leading Republican presidential candidates to snub a debate at a historically black college..."

No. Not correct. The G.O.P. candidates didn't "snub" the Tavis Smiley forum. What they did was make an informed decision not to campaign in a forum which was over 99% Democrat when they are running in a Republican primary where Democrats can't vote. One of the cardinal rules of politics is that you campaign for the votes of people who have the right to vote for you. If you are campaigning before non-voters, or voters who can't vote for you, you are wasting your time. The only candidates who showed up are the ones who had nothing to lose, because they are not even on the radar to become nominees in the Presidential election. The real candidates need to spend their time in primary states in front of real primary voters.

5. "He [Thomas] does include a warm mention of Mr. [actually Senator Strom] Thurmond, a supporter in 1991, without mentioning that the senator hid away a child fathered with a black maid..."

Yeah, okay, he didn't mention it, but why would Thomas mention the insignificant indiscretion of a 22 year old which occurred 78 years before the Senator's death? Rich is really using this swipe as a way to dredge up the past without adding anything to the discussion. What really offends Rich is that the indiscretion was with a black woman, not that Thurmond fathered a child out of wed-lock.

Thomas does mention Thurmond's segregationist past, which is really a more significant fact, and that he had "grown up fearing the lynch mobs of the Ku Klux Klan; as an adult, I was starting to wonder if I'd been afraid of the wrong white people all along.." Clearly he had. He should have been watching out for people like Rich instead. They posed the greater threat.

4. Rich complains of Thomas having an "enemies list" without mentioning that Thomas has real enemies. Take former Judge Abner Mikva as an example.

Abner Mikva is the former Clinton lawyer who turned over the long missing Rose Law Firm billing files in the Whitewater investigation. He has now rejected the candidacy of his former client, Hillary Clinton, who had hidden the files for years even though they were under subpoena, and cast his support with Barrack Obama. One of the revealing facts Thomas exposes was that it was Mikva, or someone on his staff, who leaked confidential documents from court records in the D.C. Court of Appeals files to the Senate before Thomas' confirmation hearing.

Sometime people have real enemies. Mikva is one of them.

3. "Dent was the architect of the 'Southern Strategy' that exploited white backlash against the civil-rights movement to turn the South into a Republican stronghold."

No. Not correct. The 'Southern Strategy' was not designed by any one person. Kevin Phillips is widely accepted as having played a large role in creating the 'Southern Strategy' and he later wrote a book, The Emerging Republican Majority, which predicted a conservative realignment in national politics. But why even mention Dent in an article about Clarence Thomas. Dent might have been there when the 'Southern Strategy' was developed, but Thomas wasn't. He was in high school.

Is this guilt by association? It is. Rich is parading out the death of Harry Dent in a column about Clarence Thomas when there is no indication that Dent and Thomas have ever even met. Dent retired from politics in 1981, the year that Thomas moved to Washington from Missouri.

2. "[Anita Hill] was slimed on camera by Mr. Thomas as 'not the demure, religious, conservative person' she said she was."

No. Not correct. Anita Hill was not "slimed." The record now shows that Anita Hill is neither demure, nor conservative. Whether she is religious or not, we don't know, but wearing religion on her sleeve appears to have been more of a tactic than a calling. Having your facade exposed is not the same as being "slimed."

When she was initially hired by Thomas, as a favor for a friend named Gil Hardy, she was asked what she thought of Ronald Reagan. She responded "I detest him," an opinion which runs counter to her assertion that she was a Republican and conservative black woman.

Today she write predominantly in favor of Democrats and Democrat politics, a fact which supports the conclusion that she never really was a conservative, let alone a conservative Republican.

1. Thomas expands his enemies list to include "light-skinned blacks."

No. Not correct. "The most effective smears are based on a kernel of truth and applied in a way that exploits a candidate's political weakness." Such it is with Rich's smear campaign. Thomas does mention that because his skin is darker than that of other blacks, he was sometimes the victim of discrimination by other blacks as a child. That is the kernel of truth in this smear campaign. However, nothing in Thomas' book indicates that he considers light-skinned blacks to be his enemies.

So, there you have it. Frank Rich. The comfortable white liberal racist, fossilized in his self-righteousness, in his racism, and in his hatred.