On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher said that many Republicans “would be thrilled to have no black seats” on the Supreme Court and also criticized then-President George H.W. Bush for nominating Justice Clarence Thomas to “the black seat” on the Supreme Court to replace Justice Thurgood Marshall even though Thomas doesn’t “represent the majority of black thinking in America.”
Maher said, “We have the first black woman, let’s go back, for some of the people who don’t remember this also…we’ve only had two, Thurgood Marshall, 1967. When he died, it was George Bush …was president, and so, they accepted the idea that there was now a black seat on the court and that’s how we got Clarence Thomas. Now, I thought it was not exactly cricket to give the black seat to someone who didn’t represent the majority of black thinking in America. But here’s the difference, at least they accepted, George Bush did, the idea of at least one black seat on the court, right? I think today’s Republicans would not do that. I think they would be thrilled to have no black seats on the court…a lot of them.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett