In a rare admission by a Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas admitted yesterday that he never attends State of the Union addresses. He was absent for President Obama’s speech to Congress and the nation on January 27.
“Presidents mostly say things that I don’t agree with or can’t understand, so what’s the point?” Thomas said. “I hope they don’t think they are going to teach me anything. Besides, I need my shut-eye and these speeches drone on for over half-an-hour.”
Speaking at the Shooting Range for the Six-Gun Law School in Lawless, Florida, Thomas said he carefully read the Constitution once long ago and found no requirements that a Supreme Court justice do good or attend meetings.
“When Reagan appointed me, or was it President Bush? Anyway, he agreed that I would never have to do anything,” Thomas said. “I do get to make up my own reasons for decisions and do it all with the help of those, what do you call them, associaters? No, judicial assistants.”
Critics have long questioned Thomas’s attentiveness during Court hearings when they found him snoring, drooling and with his eyes closed. Off camera he explained, “I was only resting my eyes.”
Thomas’s law school address carefully not planned to interfere with his daily nap schedule-10 to 2, 1 to 3 and 4 to 5-included members of local Baptist churches who are seeking quickie law degrees to accompany child-kidnapping trips to Haiti. Despite his skin color, which some Baptists disagree with, many fundamentalists find him a role model.
“Anyone who hates human rights, the environment, and illegal aliens, and loves guns and God is okay in my book,” said Doggie Code, leader of The Family, a secret society that sponsors the National Prayer Breakfast. “He’s got power and that’s what we love. He marches to his own drummer.”
In his speech, Thomas urged fundamentalists to amass more money if they want to control the political process. Money is what made America great and in America “money talks,” hence his agreement with the Court’s decision that corporations have the right to buy and control the political process in “our new democracy.”
“I’m a Divine Righter myself but rules are rules when it comes to the Constitution,” said Thomas. “My guiding philosophy is, ‘Don’t Know-Don’t Tell,” but I also believe “Money Rules.”
DON MONKERUD is an California-based writer who follows cultural, social and political issues. He can be reached at monkerud@cruzio.com.