Another few decades of Clarence F'ing Thomas

In thinking about longevity and the Supreme Court ( http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002895536 ) I was thinking that it is only a matter of time before some reliable ideologue fresh out of law school is put on the SCOTUS in hopes of maximizing the power of an appointment by projecting an ideology for 40 or 50 years.

Has that happened? Well, the case of Clarence Thomas comes pretty close.

Since Republicans are cynical and disgusting, when Thurgood Marshall left the court it was automatic that they would find a candidate who resembled Marshall in nothing whatsoever except skin color. (The same mind set that thought Sarah Palin would appeal to Hillary voters.)

The supply of black conservatives is always a little thin, so they went with Clarence Thomas, a black conservative who had been essentially manufactured to replace Marshall — GHW Bush had appointed Thomas to the District Court in 1990 (replacing Robert Fucking Bork) and Thomas had only been a judge for all of 16 months when he was elevated to the Supreme Court, for life, in 1991. (Before that he had been Reagan and Bush's Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a position that neither president probably thought should even exist. His entire career was as a Right Wing token in a series of jobs that the republicans figured, for appearance sake, out to be held by someone of color.)

He had no particular personal qualifications. He is the least intelligent, least accomplished and least scholarly Supreme Court justice in ages. He is essentially Scalia's side-kick. He never has anything to say, and has zero influence.

But this non-entity will have an unusually great personal impact on American law because Thomas was 43 years old when appointed. (Nobody else on the court was appointed under age 50.)

Though it feels like Thomas has been on the Supreme Court forever he is only 64 years old.