2016 July 5^th

Cal Thomas decries “identity politics,” by which he means people who would vote for Hillary Clinton just because she is a woman. I wonder if identity politics also describes people who would vote for Trump just because he is a Republican. (Surely no one would do that.)

Commenting on Clinton as the first woman President, Thomas says, “Must we go through the entire list of firsts…many cheering the first African American President are insincere or disingenuous. Otherwise they would have applauded the advancement of other African Americans like Gen. Colin Powell, Justice Clarence Thomas, Rep. (one term) Alan West and conservative women like Sarah Palin and former presidential candidate Carly Fiorina…”

Poor Cal, if he had bothered to look he would have found that General Colin Powell was a supporter of Barak Obama in the last election. He is a very liberal Republican that some believe would be more at home as a Democrat. Those who supported the President did indeed support General Powell and vice versa.

As to Justice Clarence Thomas, there is evidence that this curious addition to SCOTUS who has rarely asked a question or strayed from the shelter of Alito or Scalia, was a controversial pick. Another black attorney, Anita Hill, accused him of sexual advances and her accusations were echoed by other women attorneys. One woman attorney claimed that if Thomas interviewed  you, you were being inspected for physical qualities not legal expertise. The smallest majority of Senators ever to approve of a SCOTUS appointee approved Thomas; never mind, Cal Thomas believes we should “applaud his advancement.”

How about Alan West, another African American we should applaud according to Cal Thomas. West served just one two-year term in congress from Florida. His history is interesting. He was court marshaled by the army and forced to retire because of his abuse of an Iraqi detainee he subjected to a fake execution, firing his pistol inches from the man’s head. His badly flawed judgement continued in Congress, which could account for his very brief career there.

That Cal Thomas presents us with conservative women like Sarah Palin and Carly Fiorina as examples of politically prominent Republican women deserves no comment.

His exclusions are worth noting: First is the fact that the first woman nominated to be the Vice President of the United States was Democrat Geraldine Ferraro. That was sometime before and with considerably better credentials than Governor Palin. Of course you can’t expect Cal Thomas to know that, or to mention it if he did know it.

His most glaring omission is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. This was a highly intelligent black woman who served in the George W. Bush administration. Instead, he spends much ink pushing Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Reagan’s Ambassador to the UN, a considerably lesser light and a much lesser intellect. Kirkpatrick supported military dictator ships, particularly Argentina’s, because she preferred their violent abuse of human rights to the possibility of communism. She even supported arming the contras, an impeachable offense for the Reagan administration. Hey, that’s no problem for Cal Thomas. 

Condoleezza Rice however was opposed, and often vilified, by Vice President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Ambassador Bolton. She just wasn’t sufficiently warlike. Maybe a Moral Majority VP really wants to revere only “weapons grade” government conservatives.