A Process as Near Perfect as Possible : Is Senate up to handling Thomas nomination?

Clarence Thomas, President Bush’s nominee for the Supreme Court, faces the Senate Judiciary Committee today. Thus begins what could be a weeks-long probe of the nominee. How this constitutionally mandated process will end is unclear. But current odds favor confirmation.

Thomas, a black man, is proposed to replace Thurgood Marshall, also black. It will be difficult for the Senate to deny confirmation to a minority nominee without clear and compelling reasons.

The Thomas controversy arises because, in respects other than race, Thomas and Marshall could not be less alike. Thomas bridles at accepting the whole medicine bag of affirmative-action remedies advanced by the civil rights Establishment. The National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People has recommended against confirmation. If Thomas were more like Marshall, he undoubtedly would sail through the Democratically controlled Senate panel; on the other hand, he would never have been nominated by the Republican White House.

THE PROCESS: The hope is that the Senate will rise above politics and conduct a dignified and intelligent confirmation hearing that goes beyond politics to determine what this man stands for and what his judicial philosophy is. The committee needs to discover whether he is independent and open or a closed-minded ideologue who will destroy any semblance of court balance needed to afford legal issues a thorough airing.

The panel needs to focus high-mindedly on legal issues and leave the politics to lesser forms of political life. Bush has properly condemned extreme right-wing “attack ads” against Democratic Sens. Alan Cranston, Edward M. Kennedy and Joseph R. Biden Jr., the latter two members of the Judiciary Committee. But the Conservative Victory Committee’s TV ads, centering on personal blotches in the senators’ backgrounds, have already polluted the atmosphere inside the beltway. Perhaps solace can be taken in the thought that the ads might backfire.

THE MUDDINESS: An attack from the other side, by the liberal-minded People for the American Way, does not merit comparable outrage and condemnation. But it’s not clear that the issue it is raising contributes much to the process. The group maintains that when Thomas was chairman of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission he billed the government for trips that were unrelated to official business. It’s possible that the allegations might prove a genuine issue by raising questions of character. But one senses the drumming up of elements not central to the matter at hand.

Of greater gravity, we think, is the American Bar Assn.’s finding that the nominee--a circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for more than a year--is “qualified” but not “well qualified.” The issue of judicial competence is the one the Senate panel must firmly--but professionally--explore. The issue of Clarence Thomas is complex. It will test the ability of the Senate panel to be a thorough and fair judge of a judge.