{"id":30150,"date":"2008-08-18T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T03:30:04","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T03:30:04","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T03:30:04","slug":"obama_trashes_justice_thomas_using_demeaning_talking_points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2008\/08\/18\/obama_trashes_justice_thomas_using_demeaning_talking_points\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama Trashes Justice Thomas Using Demeaning Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: This is the one that has a lot of people simply outraged. This is from Rick Warren\u2019s Civil Forum on the Presidency on Saturday night. The question, ‘Senator Obama, which existing Supreme Court justice would you not have nominated?\u2019<\/p>\n

OBAMA: I would not have nominated, uhhh, Clarence Thomas. (applause) Uh, I don\u2019t think that he\u2019s — uhhh… uhhh… I — I — I — I — I — I — I — I — uh — I don\u2019t think that he was an exper[ienced] — uh, I — I don\u2019t think that he was a — a strong enough jurist or legal thinker, uh, at the time, uh, for that elevation. Setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretations of a lot of the Constitution. <\/p>\n

RUSH: Did you?<\/line><\/a>OBAMA: I would not nominate Justice Scalia, although I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any doubt about his intellectual brilliance, uh, because he and I just disagree. <\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: All right, now, two things about this. First, did you hear him catch himself talking about Clarence Thomas\u2019s lack of ‘exper– uh, uhhh, uhhhh, uhhhhhh — strong enough jurist.\u2019 See, he knows he\u2019s got no experience. He knows he can\u2019t win the experience game. And then, talking about inserting race into the campaign, here\u2019s a black guy, Barack Obama, saying that THE black guy on the Supreme Court is an idiot! ‘But Scalia, you know, he\u2019s smart white guy, but I still don\u2019t agree with him.\u2019 By the way, Barack Obama is 47. Clarence Thomas was on the Supreme Court, nominated to the Supreme Court in what, \u201991? It\u2019s a long time ago. It\u2019s either 16 or 18 years ago. So Obama\u2019s, what? What\u2019s 47 minus 18? Twenty-nine. What did he know about Clarence Thomas\u2019 qualifications? He knew diddly-squat. <\/p>\n

What he knew was what he remembers hearing in college classrooms and from his political buddies about Clarence Thomas, and they sing from the same tune. Everybody has forgotten that Harry Reid said the almost identical thing about Clarence Thomas — Cookie could probably dredge that up from our archives. Harry Reid said, ‘I just don\u2019t agree with his opinions.\u2019 He just insulted Thomas\u2019 intelligence. He almost called him ‘illiterate,\u2019 is what Harry Reid said — and it\u2019s that way of every powerful conservative. The left has this cliched, index card answers for every individual they are asked about on the conservative side they don\u2019t like, and Obama has been taught that. <\/p>\n

I refuse to believe that Obama has actually personally thought about it. I don\u2019t think he thinks enough about these judges \u2019cause he doesn\u2019t have enough time, he\u2019s always thinking about himself. His world resolves around him, and it probably already has. So let\u2019s examine this. He wasn\u2019t strong enough. He wasn\u2019t a good legal thinker. He basically wasn\u2019t qualified. Okay. Kathryn Jean Lopez has written a great piece, a little piece here at National Review: ‘What exactly is Barack Obama\u2019s problem with Clarence Thomas? … Was it that Barack Obama didn\u2019t like Justice Thomas\u2019 vote on the recent child-rapist case, Kennedy v. Louisiana? No, that couldn\u2019t be it. Barack Obama agreed with Thomas on that decision. <\/p>\n

‘Justice Ginsburg, meanwhile — a liberal favorite on the Court, whom John McCain listed as one of his least favorite justices during the same forum — opposed giving child rapists the death penalty. So what\u2019s so wrong about Thomas and so right about, say, Ginsberg, Senator Obama? Explain the logic. He can\u2019t, of course, and still win an election — which is why he agreed with Thomas,\u2019 and there are many other cases that she cites here where Obama agrees with decisions Thomas has made, disagrees with decisions Ginsburg has made and yet here came the rote criticism from the memory bank in Obama\u2019s brain, not from anything he specifically and originally thinks. <\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal today with a great editorial on this about Obama\u2019s not just criticizing; what Obama sought to do was ‘demean\u2019 Justice Thomas. ‘Obama took a lower road, replying first that ‘that\u2019s a good one,\u2019 and then adding that ‘I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas. I don\u2019t think…” You heard the quote. ‘So let\u2019s see. By the time he was nominated, Clarence Thomas had worked in the Missouri Attorney General\u2019s office, served as an Assistant Secretary of Education, run the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and sat for a year on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation\u2019s second most prominent court. Since his ‘elevation\u2019 to the High Court in 1991, he has also shown himself to be a principled and scholarly jurist. <\/p>\n

‘Meanwhile … Obama isn\u2019t yet four years out of the Illinois state Senate, has never held a hearing of note of his US Senate subcommittee, and had an unremarkable record as both a ‘community organizer\u2019 and law school lecturer. Justice Thomas judicial credentials compare favorably to Mr. Obama\u2019s Presidential resume by any measure. And when it comes to rising from difficult circumstances, Justice Thomas\u2019s rural Georgian upbringing makes Mr. Obama\u2019s story look like easy street,\u2019 as I mentioned at the top of the program. So he just sat down, he decided he was going to ‘demean\u2019 Clarence Thomas with this answer. <\/p>\n

But as the Journal says here: ‘Even more troubling is what the Illinois Democrat\u2019s answer betrays about his political habits of mind. Asked a question he didn\u2019t expect at a rare unscripted event [he] didn\u2019t merely say he disagreed with Justice Thomas. Instead, he instinctively reverted to the leftwing cliche that the Court\u2019s black conservative isn\u2019t up to the job while his white conservative colleagues are.\u2019 Not to mention that before joining the court, Clarence Thomas goes to Holy Cross and then to Yale, in addition to all of these other qualifications — and then there\u2019s Obama. He was a state senator, along with how many used car salesmen who have been state Senators. I mean, it\u2019s nothing of particular distinction when compared to Clarence Thomas\u2019 record. He\u2019s a very junior US senator. <\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t have a very illustrious teaching career at Chicago. The New York Times reported all the heavy hitter faculty folks never heard the guy utter an interesting word or write anything, either, when he was teaching law at the University of Chicago. I\u2019m telling you, he\u2019s an empty suit, but he doesn\u2019t know it. He actually thinks he\u2019s The Messiah. Nancy Pelosi is out there saying he is a gift from God. ‘We have never had a leader like this that God has given us.\u2019 So these people are all caught up in the myth and The Messiah thing. But then, when they start thinking about it pretty seriously, they know they\u2019ve got a big, big problem; because they\u2019ve nominated a guy who can\u2019t win, who will not be able to survive — intact, with the rave reviews — upcoming presidential debates. I\u2019ve always thought this was going to be an election that was a referendum, up or down, on Obama, and I am more convinced of that than ever today. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Here\u2019s the Harry Reid bite, just to illustrate that what comes out of Obama\u2019s mouth is s dogma. It\u2019s just the standard operating procedure. It\u2019s from the handbook. Clarence Thomas\u2019 name comes up, this is what Democrats say. This is from the December 5th, 2004 episode of Meet the Press. This is Harry Reid from December 5th of 2004 on Meet the Press. This is what Dingy Harry said.<\/p>\n

REID: I — I think that he has been a[n] embarrassment to the Supreme Court. I think that his opinions are poorly written. I don\u2019t — I just — I just don\u2019t think that he\u2019s done a good job as a Supreme Court justice.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I bet he hasn\u2019t read any of his opinions. But it is just insulting, it\u2019s demeaning, and this is simply because he\u2019s a black Republican. He\u2019s black. They\u2019ve never said anything about Scalia\u2019s intelligence other than it\u2019s extraordinary, or John Roberts\u2019 intelligence (it\u2019s extraordinary) or Alito\u2019s. They\u2019re just wrong on the Constitution, don\u2019t you know? But Thomas, he just dumb \u2019cause he\u2019s a black Republican, or conservative, or what they think is a black conservative. So their answers are rote. I\u2019m telling you, this is a microcosm for most of what Obama says. It\u2019s what he\u2019s been taught by the blame-America-first crowd that he\u2019s hung around with all of his life. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: This is the one that has a lot of people simply outraged. This is from Rick Warren\u2019s Civil Forum on the Presidency on Saturday night. The question, ‘Senator Obama, which existing Supreme Court justice would you not have nominated?\u2019 OBAMA: I would not have nominated, uhhh, Clarence Thomas. (applause) Uh, I don\u2019t think that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nObama Trashes Justice Thomas Using Demeaning Talking Points - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2008\/08\/18\/obama_trashes_justice_thomas_using_demeaning_talking_points\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Obama Trashes Justice Thomas Using Demeaning Talking Points - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: This is the one that has a lot of people simply outraged. This is from Rick Warren\u2019s Civil Forum on the Presidency on Saturday night. The question, ‘Senator Obama, which existing Supreme Court justice would you not have nominated?\u2019 OBAMA: I would not have nominated, uhhh, Clarence Thomas. 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