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Matthews Suggesting Choice Of Clarence Thomas Killed Off ‘Black Seat’?

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Are only liberals authentic blacks who make fitting nominees to the traditional “black seat” on the Supreme Court?  Did the nomination of the conservative Clarence Thomas somehow kill off the “black seat” tradition?

Chris Matthews seemed to suggest as much on this afternoon’s Hardball.  Along the way, Matthews analogized Thomas to Abe Fortas, a nominee who ultimately withdrew his name when ethical issues arose.

Matthews made his murky comment while  discussing the prospects for David Souter’s replacement with Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.).

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Ben Cardin, do you think we still live in a time where we have sort of implicit quotas for these jobs?  You know, you and I grew up in a country where you had something called the Jewish seat: Frankfurter, and before that Brandeis and Cardoza. And that sorted drifted away after Fortas and that problem.

And then we had the black seat with Thurgood Marshall, and that sort of drifted away when we got a conservative African-American on there, Clarence Thomas.

It’s difficult to decipher just what Matthews meant.  Are liberals the only authentic African-Americans? If Clarence Thomas were to leave the bench tomorrow, does Matthews imagine Pres. Obama wouldn’t be under considerable pressure to appoint a black to replace him?  I imagine Justice Thomas himself would be opposed to the notion of a “black seat.”   Even so, Matthews logic seemed odd, to say the least.

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3 Comments

  1. motherbelt wrote:

    I’ve said many times that “black” is not so much a skin color as a political philosophy. If one doesn’t hold to certain principles and beliefs, one isn’t an “authentic” black.

    Saturday, May 2, 2009 at 10:03 PM | Permalink
  2. bigtimer wrote:

    Moderate..Centrist…the far-left loves trying to cram these words down our throats daily as long as it is somebody they agree with or support for their cause…sorry part of all of this is the lemmings swallow this and ape it all…those that listen that is.

    We never have a whole heck of a bunch of the conservatives come out with their voices using the msm in unison saying different…more than once or twice…this and many more issues need to be spoke about by conservative voices in the msm…instead we get the so-called centrists/moderates on our side of the aisle speaking in monotone voices saying something different…and that is a big maybe…which by the way, I call these centrists as the msm likes to call them on the ‘R’ side of the aisle RINOs.

    We need a real leader…soon!

    Sunday, May 3, 2009 at 3:54 PM | Permalink
  3. bigtimer wrote:

    I’m sorry Mark about the post above, it belonged on Georgie’s blog spot below…we had a power outage here and when I logged back in, I didn’t pay enough attention to where I was posting too.

    As far as anything Matthews says anymore…I could give a rats rear less…he is so over the top anymore I feel he along with his buddies on msnbc need to be committed to the nearest insane asylum.

    Run…don’t walk.

    Sunday, May 3, 2009 at 4:00 PM | Permalink