1 September—A woebegone trio of critically, perhaps terminally myopic gatekeepers guarding the Hearst RepublicanAmerican’s critically, perhaps terminally myopic editorial-page masquerades as what Hearst dignifies as the moribund rag’s editorial board. Their critically, doubtless terminally myopic conservative hero of the day, judging by the critically, conservatively myopic syndicated columns polluting the editorial page, appears to be a creep called Josh Hammer.

If you’ve never heard of Josh Hammer, don’t let it bother you. You haven’t missed much. In all events, his creep credentials are clear as can be in the first paragraph of his column in yesterday’s newspapers, titled (sadly, with some justification) “Clarence Thomas played the long game. He won.”

Hammer gushes, “An important new book by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, ‘Going Further,’ calls attention anew to the life and career of the single greatest living American, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.”

Come again? Repeat in bold italics: “the single greatest living American, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.”

That’s what it says. Read it and laugh. Read it and weep. Read it and puke.

True, that sickening panegyric comes directly from Ted Cruz himself, and it’s only one of the superlatives the Texas senator with resurrected presidential aspirations heaps on Thomas, beginning with the long title of his mawkishly hagiographic opus, “Going Further: The Incomparable Clarence Thomas,” and including undeserved kudos like “a true American hero,” “an extraordinary American hero,” “one of the most consequential Americans ever to live,” and “one of the most consequential figures in the history of the United States.”

Unfortunately for the history of the United States, the last one doesn’t appear to be far from the truth. Notwithstanding the catastrophic effect on the republic of Donald Trump’s three SCOTUS appointees, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, with the cooperation—make that collusion, complicity, connivance—of fellow Yalie Samuel Alito has gone above and beyond all reason and moderation to subvert the Constitution and American principle and decency. They haven’t needed Trump to wreak their havoc. But he has made it much easier . . .