We all know Thomas would be on the USSC if he wasn't black. Not to mention, he rarely ever disageres with Scalia and he rarely writes opinions. I am guessing he does not think too much for himself.

it's tough to write opinions when you sleep through most of the arguments.

Fair enough 9:58.

STOP IT YOU RACIST A$$HOLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ironic how 9:57 & 9:58 prove Thomas's point about the deleterious effects of affirmative action and (condescending) white liberal guilt.

I won't even address the tired and disproven charge that Thomas is a Scalia clone.

As for the quality of Thomas's opinions, name one that's poorly written. Go ahead, take your time. I'll wait.

Crappy job, high debt, ripped off etc.

Just because something is well-written [grammatically or stylistically] doesn't mean that it is not complete and utter nonsense. Take his concurrence in Morse v. Frederick that NO ONE ELSE joined for one recent example.

10:30... what exactly did 9:58 say that was at all related to affirmative action or "white liberal guilt"?

9:57 - the claim that he rarely writes opinions is demonstrably false. Over his tenure on the court, Thomas is around the middle of the pack. There are statistics on this, and you are flat wrong.

10:57 (same person?), so what? Pick another justice and in 5 minutes I can point you to a case in which they alone dissented. that's not a sign of stupidity, its a sign of free thinking. CJ Rehnquist was known as the lone ranger during the 70s because of all the times he dissented and no one joined.

I'm 10:57 and not the same as 9:57. Plenty of "free thinking," people think the world is flat, that evolution did not happen, and that they have been abucted by aliens. While being the sole dissenter does not alone show stupidity, saying that students have no speech rights while in schools because people in the 18th century could not have thought they did is sheer idiocy. Did his ouija board tell him that? It must have since there were few if any public schools at the time of ratification.

On a completely different note, the Morning Docket headline for Keifer Sutherland is absolutlely hilarious.

11:44: Yes. That's because B Clerker PWNS!

Majority opinions are assigned by the senior justice in the majority (which Justice Thomas obviously never is), and dissenting opinions are assigned by the senior justice in the dissent. It is thus unremarkable that the major opinions/dissents tend/tended to be written by the Chiefs (both of them) and Justice Scalia, all of whom are more senior than Justice Thomas. Opinions generally are assigned evenly, so you won't see any difference in the number of majority opinions.

The only way Justice Thomas could have fewer opinions than most Justices would be if he were less individual than most. I would think we could all agree that's not the case since much of liberal complaining about Justice Thomas surrounds the fact that he writes opinions that no one else joins (supposedly b/c they're so "extreme.") In fact, in recent terms Justice Thomas has been high on total number of opinions, though not as high as Justice Stevens, who consistently leads the pack (probably because he is both the most senior justice of the liberals and the most liberal justice).

11:50, you speak the truth.

B Clerker PWNS!

That Thomas article didn't grab me. As a critic of Thomas I was expecting a lot more. I WANTED this guy to convince, or at least put me on the defense and boil my blood a little bit. But basically it just said that liberals think Thomas is too angry now when before they thought he didn't understand racism. Maybe I was around different people, but back in 2000 I remember a lot of us were very aware of that he grew up very poor, suffered extreme racism at the hands of whites, as well as blacks who also made fun of his dark skin, and used to be a sort of black militant, in his younger days. I think that is what makes his political beliefs so perplexing.
Also, I always put him in the category of trying to get ahead, based on his accepting a position at the EEOC from Reagan for the express purpose of dismantling it. I like having an EEOC. He may have had good reasons, but I can't imagine what they were.
It also bugs me that Thomas wasn't even a good affirmative action pick. Affirmative action can exist while picking qualified people-- there are a lot out there! I guess not when it comes to trying to find one, any black conservative.
Overall, lets all just be friends with Thomas-- he'll be there for a while and he's done far less damage in the lasts 7 years than the white house has.