Clarence Thomas: Obama approved by ‘elites and the media’

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas claims he never doubted an African-American president would be elected in his lifetime, but said he knew it would have to be someone who was "approved" by the elites and the media.

The Supreme Court’s lone African-American Supreme Court Justice took what some see as a subtle swipe at the nation’s first African-American president in a CSPAN event that aired April 9 and recently popped up on YouTube.

When asked if he expected there would be an African-American president in his lifetime, Clarence Thomas said at a Duquesne Law School event that he never doubted there would be, adding that he “knew” the first black president would have to be someone “approved by the elites and the media.”

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“I always knew that it would have to be a black president who was approved by the elite, and the media, because anybody they didn’t agree with they would take apart,” Thomas said.

“Any black person who says something that is not the prescribed things that they expect from a black person will be picked apart,” he continued. “So, I always assumed it would be someone the media had to agree with.”

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Thomas declined to answer directly when asked if he had common ground with President Obama on any issues, insisting that he didn’t necessarily have any common ground with George W. Bush either and doesn’t like politics. He did say he shares some common ground with Obama-appointee Elena Kagan and Clinton-appointee Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

While the justice insisted he eschews politics, his wife Ginni Thomas has been a conservative activist, working with a Tea Party group dedicated to fighting what she has characterized as Obama’s leftist “tyranny.”