<p>sewhappy – Some of that might be true, except Thomas gives speeches all the time to friendly crowds, has written a (pretty good) autobiography, and the opinions he writes are generally ideological screeds, not craftsmanlike consideration of technical cases. Thomas IS a practiced,eloquent speaker, by the way. He has a lifetime appointment, and together with four other colleagues at any point he shares about as much power as anyone on Earth but the President of the United States and maybe Putin and Hu Jintao. </p>
<p>He was an aggressive, ideological bully himself before his appointment to the Supreme Court. Unlike many Supreme Court appointees, he did not come out of nowhere. He was the #1 Republican candidate to replace Thurgood Marshall for years before his actual appointment, and he was publicly shortlisted to replace Brennan. He worked to put himself in that position – it doesn’t just happen to anybody. Practically his whole career has been spent in Washington.</p>
<p>The posture of being the traumatized victim of bullies in the press fits him very poorly.</p>
<p>Maybe when the secret histories of the current Court come out, it will turn out that he was influential on his colleagues, and worked behind the scenes to craft majorities. That’s what happened to Brennan. Everyone knew he was a leader on the Warren Court, but until legal historians got access to the papers of the Justices people didn’t realize how much he had contributed to other people’s opinions, and how much of the Chief’s heavy lifting he had done. But the rumors on Thomas that filter out from those who pay more attention to the Court than I do – conservative as well as liberal – do not portray him that way.</p>