MRC Just Can’t Stop Defending Thomas Over Financial Scandals

The Media Research Center, it seems, can’t stop defending Clarence Thomas against his growing financial disclosure scandals. Alex Christy — who has been the MRC’s most vociferous defender of Thomas — spent a May 6 post whining that a commentator insisted that criticism of Thomas isn’t politically motivated:

Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart spent Friday’s PBS NewHour laughing at GOP allegations that Democrats are going after Justice Clarence Thomas simply because they do not like the Supreme Court’s recent rulings, implausible arguing this is just about transparency. Meanwhile, New York Times columnist David Brooks tried to find a centrist middle ground on the controversies surrounding the Court, but ultimately just twisted himself into a pretzel.

Host Geoff Bennett asked Capehart about “the Senate hearing you mentioned, this past week, it made clear that a code of conduct, if Congress does act, it won’t be a bipartisan congressional effort, because Republicans accuse Democrats of casting doubt on the Court because the Court hasn’t been ruling in Democrats’ favor. How might this play out?”

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Capehart’s claims require that people believe that history began yesterday, to ignore Brook’s earlier remarks about Harlan Crow being pro-choice, and the concentrated campaign also go after John Roberts, his wife, Neil Gorsuch, the Federalist Society, and conservative law schools in hopes that the quantity of attacks influences voters and the justices themselves more than the quality. Capehart’s claims are also impossible to take seriously when Democrats and media personalities are using Crow to demand that Thomas resign or be impeached because he is Crow’s puppet all while burying similar controversies with liberal justices.

The specific controversy regarding a “liberal justice” Christy is referring to involves Sonia Sotomayor not recusing from a case involving the publisher of her book — which is not the same as the previously undisclosed lucrative relationship Thomas has with Crow. And Christy is not about to admit that intent in bringing up Sotomayor is nothing but political motivation.

Jeffrey Lord’s May 6 column lashed out at the “liberal media” for hyping Thomas’ ethics issues, then repeated stories from the  New York Post — which he didn’t identify as a right-wing publication — referencing Sotomayor and Republican narratives about President Biden.He huffed that “the attacks on Justice Thomas by The Washington Post, columnist Marcus and others are nothing more than the latest attempt at a ‘high-tech lynching’ of a powerful and persuasive conservative black man.” But he didn’t identify the New York Post’s attacks on Sotomayor and Biden as similarly partisan attacks from a biased publication.

The defensive hits kept coming:

• Tim Graham’s May 8 podcast touched on “the Democrat/media crusade against Justice Clarence Thomas.”
• In a May 10 post on a “Frontline” documentary on Thomas — in which also attacked Anita Hill — Christy was annoyed that Thomas’ relationship with Crow was referenced and also that it was noted that “Thomas’s opinions have often been in line with the conservative politics of his friends.”

Christy ranted against more criticism of Thomas in a May 12 post, adding a different liberal justice to play whataboutism over:

NYU law professor and former Sonia Sotomayor clerk Melissa Murray joined MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle on Thursday’s The 11th Hour claimed that Clarence Thomas is a hypocrite for wanting to overturn affirmative action while he takes vacations with Harlan Crow. At the same time, both Ruhle and Murray praised Elena Kagan for refusing a bagel platter.

Murray lamented that “Justice Thomas who likely will be part of a six justice majority to overturn affirmative action in a few weeks on the grounds that it’s government largesse and undeserved where he has been accepting largesse from a billionaire super donor who has been ferreting him all over the world, to the Galapagos on super yachts and on private jets, so I mean the contrast could not be more striking and it really is disheartening.”

What is really disheartening is that not only did Murray decline to offer any actual legal arguments for affirmative action, but she and Ruhle alleged that Kagan stands in stark contrast to Thomas.

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While Ruhle and Murray heap praise on Kagan for declining some bagels, they conveniently ignore the controversy behind her decision not recuse herself from the Obamacare ruling despite being Obama’s solicitor general.

Christy had to go all the way back to 2011 to find this bit of whataboutism. And as with Sotomayor, Kagan’s recusal issue is not on the same level as Thomas’ lucrative relationship with Crow.