Perhaps you're familiar with Clarence Thomas, the Long-Dong-Silver-loving US Supreme Court Justice. With a new term recently beginning on The Court, he passed the five-year mark for not only saying nothing of value while hearing cases, but nothing at all.

Yes, you read that correctly--while no US Supreme Court Justice in over two centuries has gone even a single term without speaking from the bench during arguments, Thomas has managed to do it for five in a row.

To quote Stephen Colbert, "the man is a rock...in that he could be replaced by a rock and I'm not sure anyone would notice."

Sadly, it shouldn't really come as much of a surprise that if someone were going to set this record, it would be Justice Thomas. He certainly never even approached being "the most qualified" person in the land to sit on the Supreme Court, as President George H.W. Bush, who nominated him to the High Court, said after offering his name.

I'm quite sure that Bush didn't even believe that himself, unless he was limiting the field of competition to Thomas, then-vice president Dan Quayle, and his namesake offspring. But if he was clearly unworthy then--and he was--he is now about as appropriate a judge as Newt Gingrich is a marriage counselor.

While he doesn't seem to even want to participate in his day job, Thomas certainly does engage in the kind of partisan politicking that is not only unseemly, but sets a terrible precedent in a democracy. And at least in theory, the judiciary is supposed to be impartial, and therefore above politics.

Yet, in only the past few weeks, a number of embarrassing episodes have not only turned this legal tracheotomy into a punch line for late night comics, but have quite honestly raised questions about whether any fully-functioning democracy would allow him to continue rendering judgments so important in deciding not only the law, but values of our society.

First, there was the fact that Thomas, whose wife has earned almost $700,000 for--as far as I can tell--being his wife, finds government disclosure forms so difficult to fill out that he accidentally put $0 where $700,000 was supposed to be under "spousal income."

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Some analysis from Counterpunch

excerpt:

Edwards added absolutely nothing to the ticket. At least Dan Quayle held Indiana back in 1988 and 2002. No one state in the south went into Kerry's column. Gore did better in Florida and West Virginia. Dick Gephardt would certainly have brought the Democratic ticket Missouri and probably Iowa and hence the White House.

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(h/t Heather)

Has there ever been a worse man running a political organization than Micheal Steele? I mean, I agree with his take here from the other day on Hannidate, but I doubt his RNC peeps do. They attacked him the following day which made him back off. I have to say he's been a really interesting character. He's stuck more shoes in his mouth than any politician that comes to memory since Kristol's boy named Dan Quayle. I do hope they don't fire him because he gives us so much material to work with.

HANNITY: Predictions for the election?

STEELE: Predictions for the election, I think that overall -- and we're beginning now to do the assessments on the various races. But I think overall, given what we know so far and what this administration's proclivities are, we're going to see, I think, nice pick-ups in the House. I think we're going to see nice...

HANNITY: More specific.

STEELE: Well, I can't give a number right yet. Because like I said, we're just now beginning to look at the races. And we have races where it hasn't been clear...

HANNITY: Do you think you can take over the House? Do you think Republicans...

STEELE: Not this year. And Sean, I would say honestly.

HANNITY: You don't think so?

STEELE: Well, I don't know yet, because all the candidates we still have vacancies that need to get filled. But then the question we need to ask ourselves is, if we do that, are we ready?

HANNITY: Are you?

STEELE: Are we...

HANNITY: Answer your own question. Are we -- do you think they're ready?

STEELE: I don't know. And that's what I'm assessing and evaluating right now. Those candidates that are looking to run have to be -- have to be anchored in these principles. They have to be -- they have to understand...

HANNITY: I'm agreeing with what you're saying. I think...

STEELE: They have to understand these steps, because if they don't, then they'll get to Washington, and they'll start drinking that Potomac River water. And they'll get drunk with power and...

Honesty is a deadly word when you're a conservative. The NRCC responded this way.

"The NRCC's goal - as the campaign arm of the House Republican Conference - has always been to recapture the majority in 2010. Independent political analysts and even liberal columnists have stated that Republicans have a very real shot at taking back the majority in 2010. Make no mistake about it, we are playing to win," said Ken Spain, NRCC Communications Director.

Howie was the first to post about this.

Apparently Dan Quayle is still doing exactly what he was doing when he was George H.W. Bush's vice president: playing golf and criticizing entertainment figures. Friday, Quayle took some time out from his busy golf schedule-- he was in Tahoe (which he loves because if only potato were spelled that way...) because he was participating in the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship in nearby Stateline-- to attend a concert at Harvey's Casino by fellow Hoosier, John Mellencamp....read on

Richard Johnson:

NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley backed Mellencamp, saying, "He's right." While that may sound odd coming from a former conservative, Barkley told a local reporter, "I was a Republican - until they lost their minds." Quayle, known for his great golf game, served as veep under President Bush's father from 1989-'93.