Legal News

Justice Thomas on Dishwashers: ?What a Device!?

By Ashby Jones

I have to admit . . . that I'm one of those people that still thinks the dishwasher is a miracle. What a device! And I have to admit that because I think that way, I like to load it. I like to look in and see how that dishes were magically cleaned.

— Justice Clarence Thomas, March 31, 2009

The above comment, which we’ve now read about a dozen times and are still not tiring of, comes courtesy of the NYT’s Adam Liptak, who has a story out Monday about a recent speech given by Justice Thomas in which Thomas opined on movies, famous speeches, his mental health and, yes, household appliances.

To be fair, the dishwasher comment came in the context of a broader point Thomas was making about rights. “Today there is much focus on our rights,” he reportedly said. “Indeed, I think there is a proliferation of rights.” Essentially, Thomas went on to opine that people too often expect — as ‘rights’ — certain amenities, such as dishwashers, that should more rightly be characterized as luxuries. (Liptak points out the slight irony of Thomas’s saying this: the event, in which winners of a high-school essay contest were invited to ask Thomas questions, was devoted to the Bill of Rights.)

Other interesting quotes from the speech, according to Liptak:

• “I tend to be morose sometimes.”
• "Sometimes, when I get a little down . . . I look up wonderful speeches, like speeches by Douglas MacArthur, to hear him give without a note that speech at West Point - 'duty, honor, country.' How can you not hear those words and not feel strongly about what we have?"
• "I have on many occasions or a number of occasions when things were becoming particularly routine gone down to my basement to watch 'Saving Private Ryan’ . . . I can't tell you why that particular movie, except we have it and it's about something important in our lives - World War II."
• "This job is easy for people who've never done it . . . What I have found in this job is they know more about it than I do, especially if they have the title, law professor."

Liptak also recently listened in to a speech presented by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She opined on a handful of topics, including opera (’Madame Butterfly’ and ‘La Boheme’ are good places for opera novices to start) and on her being the only woman on the Court (”There I am all alone, and it doesn’t look right”). Mostly, however, she seemed to hew to the topic of whether the Justices should on occasion take guidance from rulings from other countries. "Why shouldn't we look to the wisdom of a judge from abroad with at least as much ease as we would read a law review article written by a professor?" she asked.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 13, 2009 (boomark / email).