When President Clinton created his special commission on race, he turned to Duke University's John Hope Franklin to lead it. The appointment was greeted with near-universal approval, for Franklin is one of the most lionized historians in the country. Two years ago, Clinton awarded him the medal of freedom.
Franklin deserves more skeptical scrutiny, and he got it last week from the editors of the Daily Oklahoman, in the scholar's home state. They uncovered an interview he gave recently to a publication of the Oklahoma Foundation for the Humanities. Asked about Justice Clarence Thomas, Franklin said, "You always have such people in any group. . . . I suspect they may be Judases of a kind . . . betrayers . . . opportunists, immoral opportunists. It's very tempting, I suppose, for people of weak character to be co-opted by the majority that can use them. They are rewarded in one way or another. If not on the Supreme Court of the United States, then some other way. So many people have a price, and it's not unusual, it's not surprising. Some blacks have a price. It's just tragic when anyone sells themselves out, whether they're black or white or yellow."
If the president is serious about reconciliation -- as he constantly claims to be -- then maybe he ought to have as the head of his race squad someone who accords those who disagree with him a little more respect than a comparison to the betrayer of Jesus Christ.