A couple of thoughts on this essay from my perspective (liberal middle-aged white guy).
1. Glenn writes: "However controversial he may be, and however unrepentantly conservative his views, it is no longer possible to deny his stature and his influence on American life and law. "
This is absolutely true, and one doesn't have to like his jurisprudence to recognize that.
It is almost funny, in retrospect, to think that he was once widely considered to be Antonin Scalia's mini-me, by liberals and conservatives alike. Especially as this current court and legal conservatives continue to venerate Scalia even as they go about weakening or reversing many of his key decisions.
Is this more Thomas' court or Roberts'? I think the anwser is that it is actually Brett Kavanaugh's court, because he is the median justice. But to the extent that Thomas and his wealthy benefactors have pulled the entire conservative legal movement to the right, maybe it is his court.
2. Thomas' historic importance aside, I cannot look past the recent revalations of two decades of financial corruption. One thing that no Supreme Court justice should ever have is a wealthy patron (or patrons). He should have chosen between personal wealth (which he could easily have acquired any time he wanted by retiring) and legal influence (by remaining on the court). He chose both and that is irredeemable corrupt.
I greatly prefer the jurisprudence of Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson to that of Thomas. But if it were to turn out that, say, Kagan was routinely being showered with lavish gifts by liberal interest groups involved in litigation before the court, that a rich liberal benefactor had actually purchased a home where her parents or other family lived and was renovating the place and allowing them to live there rent free, and that she routinely socialized with Democratic activists intend on manipulation of the court to serve liberal ends, I would think her corrupt, too.
A couple of thoughts on this essay from my perspective (liberal middle-aged white guy).
1. Glenn writes: "However controversial he may be, and however unrepentantly conservative his views, it is no longer possible to deny his stature and his influence on American life and law. "
This is absolutely true, and one doesn't have to like his jurisprudence to recognize that.
It is almost funny, in retrospect, to think that he was once widely considered to be Antonin Scalia's mini-me, by liberals and conservatives alike. Especially as this current court and legal conservatives continue to venerate Scalia even as they go about weakening or reversing many of his key decisions.
Is this more Thomas' court or Roberts'? I think the anwser is that it is actually Brett Kavanaugh's court, because he is the median justice. But to the extent that Thomas and his wealthy benefactors have pulled the entire conservative legal movement to the right, maybe it is his court.
2. Thomas' historic importance aside, I cannot look past the recent revalations of two decades of financial corruption. One thing that no Supreme Court justice should ever have is a wealthy patron (or patrons). He should have chosen between personal wealth (which he could easily have acquired any time he wanted by retiring) and legal influence (by remaining on the court). He chose both and that is irredeemable corrupt.
I greatly prefer the jurisprudence of Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson to that of Thomas. But if it were to turn out that, say, Kagan was routinely being showered with lavish gifts by liberal interest groups involved in litigation before the court, that a rich liberal benefactor had actually purchased a home where her parents or other family lived and was renovating the place and allowing them to live there rent free, and that she routinely socialized with Democratic activists intend on manipulation of the court to serve liberal ends, I would think her corrupt, too.