I can’t decide the appropriate title for this blog between “Hidden agenda” or “Self -immolation.”
The subject is the startling way that the nomination of Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991 has dramatically shaped the Supreme Court nomination in 2005-6. The notion of affirmative action on the Supreme Court was well-established with the continual reappointment of women, Jews and Blacks to fill positions allotted to them. At least that was the case until Justice Thomas.
The black community did not consider Thomas a suitable appointment for the black position because he was anti-affirmative action in his judicial views. Although Thomas was a great example of affirmative action and openness in America, a man everyone should admire, having risen to the top from a hard-scrabble dirt farming background, his politics made him a non-black and a non-hero.
Consequence: conservative politicos in Washington concluded that if you are black but anti-affirmative action, you aren’t considered black by blacks. If you are a woman opposed to Roe v. Wade, you aren’t considered a woman by women activists and if you are a Republican Jew, you aren’t a Jew to the majority of Jews. So, now there is no need to appoint a black, woman, Jew or the first Latino, because no conservative appointment is considered affirmative action unless the appointee is a Lefty.
Hidden agenda revealed; only Lefties are considered affirmative action appointments. Opponents of Clarence Thomas ended affirmative action on the Supreme Court: appears to be self-immolation.