Topic: CNSNews.com
Like its Media Research Center parent, CNSNews.com has taken stabs at defending Ginni Thomas and her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, as evidence of Ginni's behind-the-scenes agitation in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election becomes known. CNS devoted no "news" space to the growing scandal, however; the defenses of the Thomases were all given in commentaries.
A Feb. 28 commentary by Ed Meese and Ken Blackwell sought to praise the Thomases for purportedly exuding "integrity in public service":
The militant Left is attacking the principled public service of Justice Clarence Thomas again, this time by targeting his wife Ginni in a malicious attempt to delegitimize Supreme Court decisions that are faithful to the original meaning of the Constitution.
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This is cancel culture taken to a level that threatens our institutions of government. What began years ago as the politics of personal destruction has metastasized into attempts to delegitimize a distinguished and senior member of the best-functioning branch of the federal government by smearing his wife for making a private-sector career out of her principles and patriotism, doing it in a manner that avoids an appearance of impropriety by not engaging in her husband’s realm of responsibility.
Such demonization must end. Citizens will no longer want to participate in our constitutional republic if they conclude that doing so will incur years of relentless harassment targeting their spouses. And federal judges in particular have lifetime appointments so they can rise above politics, and not be subject to a lifetime of political attacks. We must rise above this noxious miasma and frame these facts truthfully, starting with the Thomases.
That truth is this: Clarence and Ginni Thomas show how a top federal judge can have a patriotic spouse with a public career, where both can faithfully pursue their respective callings with honor and integrity. We should commend their example to our fellow citizens.
On March 23 -- following new revelations that Ginni Thomas attended the "Stop the Steal" rally that turned into the Capitol riot -- it was Star Parker's turn to play cleanup, with a heavy dose of whataboutism that in part invoked right-wingers target du jour, Hunter Biden:
Liberal journalists only look for smoking guns when conservatives are the target.
Where were all the liberal journalists when The New York Post broke the story 17 months ago about emails on Hunter Biden's laptop showing he was doing business deals, profiting on his vice president father's position? He even cut his father a piece of one of the deals. The story went unreported through the presidential election. Only now is The New York Times reporting it as real.
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There is no decision that Clarence Thomas has ever made on the Supreme Court than cannot be traced directly to his rigorous and principled scholarship and commitment to the U.S. Constitution. Period.
Similarly, Ginni Thomas, who sat on the board of my organization, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, for some 15 years, is motivated by one thing — preservation of our nation as a free nation under God.
The real bottom line is one liberals don't want to hear. The way to limit questions about ethics in government is to keep government limited and small. It's exactly what America's founders had in mind and the exact opposite direction in which liberals have taken our nation.
We owe thanks to Clarence and Ginni Thomas for their relentless struggle to preserve the integrity of our Constitution and the principles that keep our nation free, despite being under endless siege by the liberal media.
Shortly after that, emails from Ginni Thomas to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows were released that show her directing agitating for the election to be overturned. That resulted in an April 1 column from Tony Perkins in full defense mode:
To most people watching the spectacle made by the Washington Post and CNN over her exchanges with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, the motives were obvious: embarrass Ginni Thomas and damage her husband.
"There are text messages that had nothing to do with Jan. 6," Ken Blackwell of my organization, Family Research Council, argued on "Washington Watch." Like a lot of Americans, she was concerned about the integrity of the election and, as a fixture of the conservative movement, wanted to make sure everything was being done to fight the suspected fraud. The two friends texted on and off the next couple of months -- including through the riots, which Ginni insisted "are not representative of our great teams of patriots."
The Wall Street Journal predicted that this was all a plan to de-legitimize Justice Thomas -- and within hours, they were proven right. Squad Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) wasted no time kicking a smear campaign into gear, whipping up the mob over a possible "conflict of interest."
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At the end of the day, this is a nothing burger meant to give desperate Democrats a chance to finish what they started three decades ago. At Thomas's confirmation, which was a few handmaidens shy of Brett Kavanaugh's scorched-earth circus, people accused the Left of a high-tech lynching.
It says something that CNS left it to opinion writers to handle this growing scandal and refused to let its "news" reporters, such as they are, do anything on it.
