| − | Two big events occurred during the one-term presidency of George H.W. Bush (who is the father of future President George W. Bush). One was the Gulf War, described above. The other was President George H.W. Bush's nomination of Clarence Thomas as the second African American to the U.S. Supreme Court, to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Thurgood Marshall.
| + | In 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas as the second African American to the U.S. Supreme Court, to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Thurgood Marshall (who was the first black Supreme Court Justice). |
| | Clarence Thomas was and is a [[conservative]] opponent of affirmative action, which is giving preferences to people based on race. He was and is considered to be an opponent of abortion also, and a conservative on most other issues. [[Liberals]] seem to grow angrier when confronted with a conservative African American, like Clarence Thomas, or a conservative woman. They did everything they could to prevent confirmation of his appointment by the Senate. | | Clarence Thomas was and is a [[conservative]] opponent of affirmative action, which is giving preferences to people based on race. He was and is considered to be an opponent of abortion also, and a conservative on most other issues. [[Liberals]] seem to grow angrier when confronted with a conservative African American, like Clarence Thomas, or a conservative woman. They did everything they could to prevent confirmation of his appointment by the Senate. |
| | The "smear" campaign against Thomas was one of the worst in American history, and Thomas himself appeared on national television to bitterly describe it as a "high-tech lynching." In a flagrant violation of the rules of the Senate, the staff of a Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee leaked a confidential FBI background report to the National Public Radio (NPR), which contained a vicious personal allegation about Thomas's past. Nothing was proven and there was much reason to disbelieve the allegation. But the plan was to intimidate Thomas into withdrawing, or turn the public against him, or give senators enough of a reason to vote against him. The liberals even scheduled a vote on the nomination almost immediately after the airing of the allegation, which could only be postponed by unanimous consent under Senate rules, in order to force senators to vote before the allegation could be disproved. But the vote was postponed, hearings were held, and only one senator moved from being for Thomas to being against him: the former Ku Klux Klan Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia. Thomas was confirmed by a vote of 52-48, the narrowest margin in history for a Supreme Court Justice. | | The "smear" campaign against Thomas was one of the worst in American history, and Thomas himself appeared on national television to bitterly describe it as a "high-tech lynching." In a flagrant violation of the rules of the Senate, the staff of a Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee leaked a confidential FBI background report to the National Public Radio (NPR), which contained a vicious personal allegation about Thomas's past. Nothing was proven and there was much reason to disbelieve the allegation. But the plan was to intimidate Thomas into withdrawing, or turn the public against him, or give senators enough of a reason to vote against him. The liberals even scheduled a vote on the nomination almost immediately after the airing of the allegation, which could only be postponed by unanimous consent under Senate rules, in order to force senators to vote before the allegation could be disproved. But the vote was postponed, hearings were held, and only one senator moved from being for Thomas to being against him: the former Ku Klux Klan Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia. Thomas was confirmed by a vote of 52-48, the narrowest margin in history for a Supreme Court Justice. |
| − | Your teacher was in D.C. at the time and had personally met Clarence Thomas a year earlier. Your teacher, the entire city of D.C., and even the entire nation, was riveted by this drama. A liberal colleague of your teacher quipped afterward that the media ambush of Thomas during the confirmation process was not likely to make him any less conservative. Since 1991 Thomas has been part of a conservative block on the Supreme Court that has grown to a total of 4-5 Justices out of a total of 9, sometimes enough for a majority and sometimes just shy by one vote. | + | Your teacher was in D.C. at the time and had personally met Clarence Thomas a year earlier. Your teacher, the entire city of D.C., and even the entire nation, was riveted by this drama. A liberal colleague of your teacher quipped afterward that the media ambush of Thomas during the confirmation process was not likely to make him any less conservative. Since 1991 Thomas has been part of a conservative block on the Supreme Court that has grown to a total of 4 or 5 Justices out of a total of 9, sometimes enough for a majority and sometimes just shy by one vote. |