The Thomas Guide To Lying

Hey, here's Thomas Sowell, blowing smoke up our asses in another brilliant expose of the liberal media:

In the recent Supreme Court decision upholding affirmative action at the University of Michigan Law School, a front-page news story in the New York Times reported the arguments used in Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's majority opinion but simply dismissed the dissenting arguments of Justice Clarence Thomas by saying that he "took as his text not the briefs but his own life story."

Those who doubt the existence of media bias should go on the Internet to find Justice Thomas' opinion ( www.supremecourtus.gov ) and read it for themselves to see if there is anything anywhere in it that bears any resemblance whatever to the characterization used by the New York Times to keep its readers from knowing what his arguments were.

The New York Times has every right to be in favor of affirmative action. But that is very different from preventing its readers from knowing what the arguments are against it -- especially in what is presented as a "news" story, rather than a front-page editorial. (Emphasis added.)

The only problem with Sowell's argument is that it's a crock of crap. The NYT printed verbatim huge chunks of Thomas's dissenting opinion. (And, of course, the paper didn't "keep" or "prevent" anyone from reading Thomas's entire dissent.) It's Sowell's column that bears no resemblance to the truth. Reading Sowell's writings, one might suspect that the Hoover Institution has an affirmative action program -- for hacks.

Update

It's even worse than I thought. At the new blog Sadly, No, the astute Seb took the time to re-read the NYT article, which I skipped because I thought it was archived and was too cheap to pay for it. He points out that article contains many quotes from Thomas's dissent from which readers can learn Thomas's arguments against the Michigan Law School affirmative action policy. In fact, "The article has 21 paragraphs. 6 are devoted exclusively to O'Connor. Two cover both justices. The other 13 deal with Thomas' dissent." More proof that it's Sowell who has contempt for his readers, and not the NYT.