Obama Draws Ire Over Comments on Clarence Thomas

OBAMA HAS NO ROOM TO ADMONISH ANY ONE, HE IS A COMMUNIST RADICAL ISLAMIC A H.


CNSNews.com
Obama Draws Ire Over Comments on Clarence Thomas
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
By Pete Winn, Senior Writer/Editor




Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (AP Photo)(CNSNews.com) –

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) drew howls of protest from conservatives over comments he made about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas over the weekend at Saddleback Church, a megachurch in Lake Forest, Calif.

Obama, the putative Democratic presidential nominee, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) appeared at a televised forum at the church, at which Saddleback’s pastor, Rick Warren, served as host. Warren, the nation’s most visible pastor and author, interviewed each man separately but asked the same questions to both.

When asked to name a Supreme Court justice he would not have appointed, Obama named Clarence Thomas.

"I don't think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation, setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretations of a lot of the Constitution," Obama said.

Conservative legal experts, who championed Thomas for elevation to the court in 1991, were livid at what they say was a personal attack on one of the top justices on the curt.

Rachel Brand, former assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush, said she was saddened by the comment, which she called “condescending.”



Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)“Never mind that Thomas already had been confirmed by the Senate to three different positions – including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (the second-most prestigious court in the land after the U.S. Supreme Court) – before he was nominated to the Supreme Court,” Brand said.

“Never mind that he had accomplished all this after overcoming more personal adversity than any other sitting Justice has endured. Sen. Obama's comment simply ignored facts and history,” she added.

Wendy Long, a former law clerk to Thomas, defended her former boss, who had compared the liberal campaign to sink his nomination to a “high-tech lynching.”

“Obama’s statements regarding the Supreme Court were ludicrous,” said Long, who is currently legal counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, a group that champions conservative judicial nominees.

“They reveal that Obama is ignorant of facts and history, misunderstands the Constitution, and contradicts himself in his own alleged criteria for Supreme Court nominees,” she said.

By the time he was nominated, Thomas had also worked in the Missouri attorney general's office, served as an assistant secretary of education, and run the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Long said.

Even Douglas Kmiec, a constitutional law scholar at Pepperdine University and an Obama supporter, said he was “disappointed” at his candidate’s mention of Thomas.

“First of all, I think Justice Clarence Thomas is one of the best appointments that have been made by Republican presidents – or any presidents, for that matter – in recent times,” Kmiec told CNSNews.com.

“I’ll tell you why: He’s the only justice on the Supreme Court who, prior to his appointment, had recognized the relationship between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution – that the Constitution is a means of indicating the inalienable rights that are traceable to our Creator,” he added.

Obama also named Justices Antonin Scalia – “He and I just disagree, you know?”— and Chief Justice John Roberts – “(His) is a tougher question only because I find him to be a very compelling person, you know, in conversation individually” – as two justices he probably wouldn’t have appointed, but did not question their legal ability.

McCain, meanwhile, named the four most liberal members of the court as judges he would not have appointed – Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and David Souter.