AAQ: Gut Vach
Neither GHWB nor any other member of his administration ever claimed with a straight face that Justice Thomas was selected as “the most qualified” candidate for the Court. He
attended Yale Law School as one of the first students to benefit from the very type of affirmative action/open admissions program of which he has now grown to hate and criticize. After graduation, he worked as a staff attorney with the Missouri AG and then as an LA for Danforth who connected him with Bush. In the post Civil Rights Act era, Bush Sr. was thrilled to associate his administration with a Black “conservative” Republican lawyer and quickly pushed him through several appointments in Dept. of Education, one year on the D.C. Circuit and then to SCOTUS.
He was a competent, albeit undistinguished lawyer with no significant publications and a great story of overcoming personal challenges but was NOT the top lawyer or jurist available to Bush after one year on the D.C. Circuit to put on the the Supreme Court. All of this came a few years after one of the most memorable statements ever made on the floor of the U.S. Senate favor of a Supreme Court nominee ( Nixon’s nomination of Harrold Carswell). Responding to criticism (mainly Dems but some Republicans too) that Carswell had been a mediocre judge, the equally undistinguished Senator from Nebraska (Roman Hruska) took the floor and passionately argued:
“So what if he is mediocre? There are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they? We can’t have all Brandeises, Cardozos, and Frankfurters and stuff like that there…”
Shockingly, the speech failed to persuade Hruska’s colleagues, and the nominee withdrew.