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i recommend...
Justice Thomas' 60 Minutes Interviewposted by Curt, on October 2, 2007 12:23 pmJustice Thomas gave a long interview for 60 minutes recently (it was broadcast this past Sunday, I believe). You can view the interview on CBS' website. There has been quite a bit of effort to rethink the "conventional wisdom" about Justice Thomas, beginning with Jan Crawford Greenberg's Supreme Conflict, which came out early this year. I think the interview is good, and I ordered Justice Thomas' new autobiography from Amazon last night. I'm sure it will take over my weekend, but I'm really excited nonetheless. I've come to have quite a bit of respect for Justice Thomas over the last year. I must admit that, even at a place as conservative as BYU, I came away from my first year with the distinct impression that Justice Thomas was a little "out there" as a judge, and was someone to be ignored while we focused on the Scalias and Breyers of the Court. Granted, Thomas' opinions often seem rather extreme in comparison with his colleagues (while they bicker about which Establishment Clause test to apply Thomas asserts that the Establishment Clause doesn't apply to the states). Still, it really is interesting how he gets cast as an intellectual lightweight, when there is substantial evidence to the contrary. I'm glad, for his sake, that people are rethinking their attitudes toward him. There's an interesting exchange between him and his interview about whether or not he has "won" anything by getting nominated to the Court and kind of coming out of the criticism heaped on him by his opponents. Thomas asserts that he hasn't "won" and his detractor's haven't "lost" anything. I don't think anyone wins when you have people engaging in the kind of personal attacks that Thomas had to endure when he was nominated. Everyone loses. But, I think everyone wins when those things get re-thought. Now, hopefully, both his critics and supporters (including me) will be able to see Justice Thomas in a more realistic light. filed in Law School and Politics
#11 curt on October 2, 2007 12:36 PMI know the Supreme Court has become big news in the mainstream media these days, but this year has seen at least four books come out about the Court--and I know for a fact that three of them deal extensively with Justice Thomas. What is it about him that fascinates everyone so? Scalia is the controversial one, but nobody writes books about him . . . anyway, I thought I would embed the code to get the books from amazon (and it contains my associate ID, so I get the referral fees if you buy). Here they are, in a nice Amazon slideshow widget.
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