Judging the Judge

Judging the Judge

This is a transcript of a PBS Newshour debate between the late Judge Leon Higginbotham (a particularly venomous Clarence Thomas opponent) and Stephen Smith (an former Thomas clerk). Higginbotham had compared Thomas to George Wallace in an effort to keep the National Bar Association from inviting Thomas to speak. Smith eviscerates Higginbotham, saying: "Again, it makes me proud of the Justice again, people like Leon Higginbotham tried to bully him and to silence him, and to try to get him not to speak, but demonstrating the kind of character he has. He stood his ground, and I thought presented a brilliant speech. He was very -- without being preachy -- he was confident, assertive of his rights to speak, and the only devastating consequences that his jurisprudence might have are for people like Leon Higginbotham, who live on keeping black people to think that people are -- that white people are racist."