Justice Clarence Thomas

I don't know of a more heated and controversial senate judicial confirmation in my lifetime (Judge Bork included) than that of Justice Clarence Thomas. The confirmation dragged him through the murky mud of left-wing rhetoric and, I think, treated him more like a man requesting parole from incarceration than one being considered for a seat on the high court.

Justice Thomas has a new book out titled "My Grandfather's Son". I heard him interviewed (in part) today about his book on squawk radio and found him to be an engaging interviewee. Here is an few excerpt from the interview:

Well, first of all, Rush, I don't really have the luxury to be bitter. I don't have the luxury of having negative things in my life. When you are trying to do your best, you don't have that support from or backup or insurance from your family or from those around you who can sort of help you compensate or make up for your mistakes, you don't have the luxury of having those sorts of negative things in your life. With respect to my wife -- and my wife's my best friend in the whole world -- we'd only been married four years when we went through the confirmation. She was 34, and I was 43 years old. Neither of us had ever been treated like that in our lives, and to be honest with you, no one had seen a precedent for that before, or since. Ultimately, we realized that it was something that she and I, with God and our prayer partners, would have to work through. We saw it as spiritual warfare, and we treated it that way. So most of our time was actually spent together, she and I from time to time actually on a daily basis, our prayer partners always in prayer or surrounded by music, religious music, and hoping and praying that we could survive this and that it would turn out okay.

I'm not sure that I will read the book but think that it might be a telling reflection of the life of a poor African American who, with God's help, found much success in his life ... and there may be a few good lessons that we might learn as well.