The Characters Who Govern Us:

The New York Times' Adam Liptak portrays Supreme Court Justice Clarence Tomas in today's paper. According to Liptak, Thomas hasn't asked a question in any session of the court since February 22, 2006. That's more than three years.

The occasion of Liptak's article was Thomas's appearance at a dinner sponsored by the Bill of Rights Institute. If Liptak is accurate in his reporting, Thomas, widely considered the second most conservative member of the court, comes accross as nearly inarticulate and hardly thinking in a logical manner.

Apparently, Judge Thomas was trapped in some sort of SciFi channel time loop that caused him to wax nostalgic about the time he spent in grade school reciting the pledge of allegiance and seeing crucifixes in every classroom.

Compare the Thomas' characterization with that of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as delivered by Washington Post staff writer Robert Barnes in Sunday's paper. Keep in mind that Ginsburg has just come off major cancer treatment.

And consider the Emporor and his new close: George W. Bush is still living in a closed community, hiding from any critical examination of his behavior over the previous eight years, insisting that in some distant time, in a galaxy yet to be discovered, his behavior will at last be vindicated. (See Eli Saslow's depiction in The Washington Post.)