Topic: Newsmax
Daniel McCarthy spent an April 18 Newsmax column offering a full-throated defense of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas while also barely mentioning the ethics scandal that prompted the column:
Clarence Thomas is an unconquered American.
He refused to let the segregation and poverty into which he was born define his life. He wouldn't let racists impose limits on him.
He also wouldn't let leftists claim ownership of his mind or allegiance simply because they opposed segregation. They were enemies of freedom, too, only from another direction.
Liberals have never forgiven him for refusing their patronage and their leash.
[...]
The latest press campaign against Thomas accuses him of failing to disclose gifts from and financial deals with his billionaire friend Harlan Crow, as well as mixing up the names of companies he owns in other financial statements.
What the indignant hype leaves out, however, is that Thomas' compliance with any disclosure rules is purely voluntary. A law that cannot be enforced is at best a suggestion.
This manufactured scandal is an opportunity to dispel a liberal myth and impart a lesson about where sovereignty lies in our nation.
[...]
The Supreme Court, like the president, is not a creature of Congress or the agencies it sets up, and the check that the legislature does wield over the judiciary and the executive, impeachment, is itself checked by the people through elections.
Yet liberals know that controlling public perception is the way to direct public opinion. That's why an ideological monopoly on the media is so important — why Fox News has to be smashed and right-ish views of any kind have to be labeled hate or disinformation.
Clarence Thomas answers to no one except, ultimately, the political force of the people. The question is whether the people finally answer to the media or whether they judge for themselves and have the independence of mind that Justice Thomas exemplifies.
Michael Dorstewitz tried his hand at a defense of Thomas in his April 28 column:
Earlier this week CNN thought they had him. They tweeted, "A company related to Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, a longtime friend of Clarence Thomas who paid for lavish trips for the Supreme Court justice and his wife, had business before the Supreme Court in the mid-2000s, records show."
However, CNN’s story destroyed that claim once they got past the headline, admitting that "Crow’s name does not appear in a caption of the case," and "neither Crow nor his company were involved in the matter or discussed it with Thomas."
As a final clincher, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
In fact, the CNN article stated only that Crow's office claimed that Crow was not involved in the case or discussed it with Thomas -- which is not a proven fact, making it much less of a claim destroyer than Dorstewitz would have you believe.Dorstewitz then whined that Thomas was compared to another former Supreme Court justice with ethics issues:
Three days later The Hill ran an opinion piece comparing Thomas to a former high court member.
"Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas showed the way," the column explained. "Caught in the midst of a financial scandal, Fortas did the decent thing and resigned rather than continue to embarrass the court and himself. This is one precedent that Thomas, a notorious iconoclast, should follow."
But the two situations aren’t remotely similar. Fortas accepted $20,000 annual cash payments from a man under investigation for securities violations.
Thomas has a wealthy friend who is not under investigation and with no case pending before the court. He invites Thomas places and the two exchange gifts.
Dorstewitz concluded by gushing that "it must be fun being Clarence Thomas. It’s fun just watching him release one of his trademark booming, infectious laughs as he drives the liberals crazy. And that’s another fun part — driving them crazy."
