I recently finished a great book that I would highly recommend to everyone, even my liberal friends, as long as they can read it with an open mind.
It is “My Grandfather’s Son,” by Clarence Thomas, associate justice of the U. S. Supreme Court.
It is an inspiring, very moving book about a great man few of us know even a little about. This book, along with an interview on “60 Minutes” and various question-and-answer sessions, illustrates clearly what an intelligent, caring, ethical, moral man he truly is.
It is certainly a picture that the numerous left-leaning groups that opposed his nomination didn’t want us to see. The same holds true for the liberal media that were agenda-driven rather than ethical in their coverage of the confirmation hearings.
He starts out by describing his early years, which constituted a life of poverty that we can only imagine. His father had abandoned the family when Thomas was only 2 years old, and his mother, making only $10 a week, couldn’t support him or his brother. They packed their belongings into a paper bag and moved in with their grandparents. It was his grandfather who taught him the importance of honesty, hard work and especially, self-reliance.
These lessons served him well as he went on to graduate from Holy Cross and then Yale Law School and then have a very distinguished life thereafter.
This is probably why the radical liberal groups hated him so much (and still do). He succeeded without their help or social program crutches they so often champion.
The libs still refuse to accept the truth. They blindly accept the lies spewed forth by Anita Hill, a simple pawn used by bigoted and racist interest groups. He calmly addresses this process and backs himself up with fact after fact, disproving all that was said against him.
We didn’t get to hear the truth the first time around because Hill and her ilk had an entire day to present their testimony during prime time while Justice Thomas’ multitude of supporters and witnesses didn’t get to address the committee until after midnight and into the wee hours of the next morning.
Rebecca Hagelin says it best in her column while reviewing the book: “Instead of gloating in sweet victory over his tormentors when he was narrowly confirmed after a bloody perversion of the process, Justice Thomas is mournful over how such an austere institution as the United States Senate could become so corrupt.”
Predictably, the liberal rags, which fewer and fewer people are reading, lashed out in their reviews. The Washington Post wrote, “Justice Thomas Lashes out in Memoir” and he “settles scores.” The closest thing to lashing out is probably making Joe Biden look like a self-centered, hypocritical fool.
The Los Angeles Times’ Edward Lazarus did a book review that is a total distortion of the truth throughout. A few quotes: The book “is a furious assault on liberalism generally and on what Thomas calls the liberal political elite that sought to derail his confirmation.”
How about one more? “Spewing invective, Thomas depicts Hill as an abrasive, vindictive, politically motivated liar exploited by a liberal mob (including a biased press) that was hell bent on his personal destruction to prevent a more conservative court from overturning Roe v. Wade.”
Thomas did no such thing in his book, but I personally do agree with Lazarus’ unintentional true description of Anita Hill. The New York Times makes similar statements, but that paper isn’t even worth quoting anymore.
Left-leaning liberals are simply a dying breed that won’t go quietly. It seems that more and more blacks are starting to realize that the Democrat Party is only interested in their votes and not them as individuals. Instead of following the Jesse Jacksons and the Al Sharptons, it seems they are slowly turning to more-credible leaders such as the highly regarded economist and columnist Thomas Sowell, Condoleezza Rice and Michael Steele, to name but a few. I should mention one more, Bill Cosby, who came out with a book titled “Come On People: On The Path from Victims to Victors.”
So, simply read the book and judge for yourselves as to which side makes more sense. I know the hard-core libs won’t spend the money, but they can check the book out of the library when no one is looking and fold their New York Times around it when walking out.
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Tom Sears is a professor of accounting at Hartwick College in Oneonta. He can be reached at SearsT@hartwick.edu. His column appears every other week.
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