Public Perception
Thomas has rarely given media interviews during his time on the Court. He said in 2007: "One of the reasons I don't do media interviews is, in the past, the media often has its own script." In 2007, Thomas received a $1.5 million advance for writing his memoir, My Grandfather's Son; it became a bestseller.
Thomas biographer Scott Douglas Gerber has opined that attacks against Thomas from critics such as Jeffrey Toobin have been unusually vitriolic, which Gerber attributes in part to liberals’ disappointment that Thomas has departed so much from the jurisprudence of the African American whom he succeeded, Thurgood Marshall. Additional possible causes for the harsh criticism of Thomas may be the inherently explosive nature of sexual misconduct accusations, the suspicion among some people that Thomas was less than forthcoming during his confirmation hearings, and the belief in some circles that Thomas has benefited from affirmative action programs like ones he has criticized as a judge.
In 2006, Thomas had a 48% favorable, 36% unfavorable rating, according to Rasmussen Reports.
Read more about this topic: Clarence Thomas
Famous quotes containing the words public and/or perception:
“I am both a public and a private school boy myself, having always changed schools just as the class in English in the new school was taking up Silas Marner, with the result that it was the only book in the English language that I knew until I was eighteen—but, boy, did I know Silas Marner!”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“What, then, is the basic difference between today’s computer and an intelligent being? It is that the computer can be made to see but not to perceive. What matters here is not that the computer is without consciousness but that thus far it is incapable of the spontaneous grasp of pattern—a capacity essential to perception and intelligence.”
—Rudolf Arnheim (b. 1904)