The morning of the Supreme Court's ruling in Bush v. Gore, the New York Times trotted out the story of Clarence Thomas's potential "conflict of interest."
Thomas's wife, Virginia, works at the Heritage Foundation, and she's involved in a project sorting the resumes of low-level, conservative wannabe Bush administration staffers. So Virginia Thomas stands to gain . . . well, THE SCRAPBOOK's not sure what exactly she stands to gain, but that hardly matters. Thomas, the Times's source was quite sure, should have recused himself from deciding on Bush v. Gore. Which would have reduced the presumptive pro-Bush faction of the court to four justices. And since Clarence Thomas didn't so recuse himself, why then he violated . . . well, THE SCRAPBOOK's not sure about that, either.
But this was the substance of the complaint that the Times reported. The allegation of the conflict was made by a certain Gilbert S. Merritt of Nashville, Tennessee, who thinks "some kind of investigation in the Senate" of Thomas would be in order. Concurring in Merritt's judgment, the New York Times quoted . . . well, nobody. Nor did the Times quote any of the legal experts one would normally expect to see in such a story. We have only Merritt's opinion to go on.
In fairness, THE SCRAPBOOK must point out that Merritt is hardly a nobody. He's a judge on the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But it is precisely Merritt's qualification to pronounce on such a matter of judicial ethics that makes the pronouncement irregular. A federal appellate judge doesn't accuse a Supreme Court justice of misbehavior every day, after all. Especially not when the remedy the appellate judge proposes might directly benefit him. We can't see why the Times ran so one-sided a story at all, but we'll credit them at least for not omitting this key fact: "Judge Merritt . . . has long association with the Gore family and was considered a leading contender for the Supreme Court early in the Clinton administration."
Then there's this. Gore campaign dissembler Mark Fabiani made a brief appearance in the Thomas story. The vice president is too classy and responsible a guy to go near such a controversy, Fabiani intoned: "The vice president has the highest regard for the independent judiciary, so we're not going to comment on the various questions that have been raised." Raised under what circumstances, one wonders? These circumstances, the Times made clear way down at the bottom of its story. "Judge Merritt offered his views about Justice Thomas after someone in the Gore campaign provided the New York Times with his name and telephone number."
Judge Merritt himself would seem ripe for "some kind of investigation in the Senate," don't you think?